Deadly Game
by dlahm17
Summary: The Soul Eater cast get locked into the deadly world of Aincrad with only their soul powers to use. Will their ingenuity save them from a harsh death as they cross paths with the cast of Sword Art Online.
1. The helmets

"Hey Maka, come over here!"

BlackStar's voice echoed through the hallway in the DWMA School for Meisters and Weapons, reaching Maka Albarn who was, as usual, seated in a corner reading a book. Maka sighed as BlackStar's voice reached her ears, and she placed a bookmark in the heavy novel.

"What is it, BlackStar?"

"Death wants to see us in his room."

Maka stood up and dusted off her coat, sticking her book in a deep pocket on the inside, "Is anyone else there, or did he just ask for the two of us?"

BlackStar shrugged, "I think that everyone else is supposed to be there, he asked for our whole group, but we need to go." So they left for the death room, unbeknownst to them a follower had slipped into the shadows behind them. "So Death has something for them?" he whispered to himself, "come with me". This second sentence was directed right behind him, to a familiar form of darkness.

"HIYA, HEYA, HEYA!" Death greeted the two newcomers as they walked in, clapping his overlarge hands together. "You're probably all wondering why I brought you, the greatest student team in DWMA, here today."

Before him stood Soul Eater and his partner: Maka Albarn, Tsubaki with her meister: BlackStar, Ragnarok with his master: Crona, and Liz and Patty with their meister; and Lord Death's only son: Death the Kid.

"There is a new invention designed to make you stronger than ever, and a better team. This was sent to us from the Japan DWMA Branch, and you are going to test it for mass DWMA use." Death was deadly serious while saying this, something most present was not used to, and Death did not seem to currently be in a joking mood.

"And that item is?" Soul asked

"This helmet!" Death exclaimed, his serious demeanor now gone, holding a metal helmet with visor and plug attached. "It can play video games!"

Kid, who had been shown this invention earlier, groaned at his father's immaturity, "What my father meant but forgot to say is that this helmet: The Virtual Sphere, attaches to our nervous system. By doing that it can simulate an entirely separate world complete with all sensory stimulation; which yes, is in itself a video game."

Death nodded, "We had a few helmets shipped in and modified by our Research and Development team that way you meisters and weapons have not only your nerves attached, but your soul. This took some time to develop, but we believe it to have incredible potential. With these modified Virtual Spheres, you can use yourselves as actual weapons and meisters, and can even use soul resonation. Even BlackStar's soul fighting style can be utilized in the simulated worlds."

"YAHOO!" BlackStar yelled out, "Now to transcend God there as well, multiple worlds mean multiple Gods, PLURAL GODS!"

"And without being hurt in reality yourself," Death added.

BlackStar jumped up and punched the air, clearly so excited he was almost to wetting himself. That is until his weapon, Tsubaki, stepped in and settled a hand on his shoulder; telling him to call down.

"Yes, yes." Death continued, "Each of you will be receiving one of the modified virtual spheres for your own personal training and use outside of school. There has also been a virtual sphere area set up across from the infirmary, which you will use when at DWMA.

Death handed each of the students one of their own virtual spheres; gesturing afterwards with his massive digits for them to try it on, "See if we got the size right", he mentioned.

Each of the meisters tried on their own helmet, rearranging the straps on the back in order to let it fit the best to their heads, or in BlackStar's case: his ego.

"My mind is much larger than all of yours," he said while giving the strap an incredible amount of slack, "Therefore it needs much more room." He attempted to place the helmet on his cranium, and it slid straight off and landed on his foot. BlackStar shrieked in surprise, "YOW! OW OW OW!" he yelled.

Kid was complaining to Patty and Liz about his own helmet, "It has this scratch right here on the left, but there is no scratch on the right. If this is mine then I am the trash of this team, nobody will want to have me and my lousy virtual sphere." He slumped to the ground with tears running, this however quickly stopped as Patty ran her fingernail across the surface of the metal; creating a second scratch on the right hand side. "All better!" she exclaimed, already having drawn on her own helmet a giraffe design.

Crona was none of the better, Ragnarok was continuously trying to take off his helmet and put it on himself. "NO!" Ragnarok shrieked, "I need one too! Otherwise you'll be in there without me, and I will pick off your fingernails.

"Stop, Ragnarok, I need to get this on"

"SO DO I!"

Behind them, Death walked up and plopped a miniaturized virtual sphere on Ragnarok's head. "We even had one made for you."

"OH NOW YOU'RE TALKING!" The small black creature exclaimed.

They were all starting to calm down and get the helmets finally fitted when the shadow that had been following them appeared… by falling from the ceiling where he was concealed.

"OOF, OUCH!" Spirit yelled out as he landed on his butt, bruising the bone.

"It was his idea," said a voice from the ceiling. Up there was another figure, this one in a white patchwork labcoat, Dr Stein. "He wanted to scare Maka, don't blame me for that."

"OI, STEIN, YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T TELL!" Spirit yelled from the floor as he rubbed his butt, trying to lessen the pain. "You said that you would just help me sneak around! Not tell everyone that I was here to try to scare my baby girl!"

Maka groaned, "Dad, stop. This would not ever be funny, or even scary. You just aren't like that."

Stein dropped to the ground lightly and held out his hand to Spirit, who swatted it away and stood up on his own; flinching at the sore rump.

"So!" Spirit said, "How are you doing Maka? Maka? Maka?"

Maka, and everyone else in the room had magically disappeared.


	2. Janitorial services

The group had sprinted away from Death, Stein, and Spirit, Maka barely escaping the punishment of being Daddy's little girl.

"That was too close" she said to the others, their chests all heaving from sprinting so fast. They all had hung on to their helmets, the plugs having trailed while they sprinted away.

"So I wonder what we could do with these?" Soul said, taking a long look at his own helmet.

"I don't know, but it sure looks cool!" BlackStar responded while trying to loosen his strap again, then tightening it as Tsubaki shot him a look.

"Death sure thought that these had a lot if potential." Tsubaki said from over BlackStar's shoulder, "maybe we should go to the Virtual Sphere area and try them out?"

Most of the group agreed, so they walked off to the infirmary. Which was being managed by Naigus at this point. Across the hall was a door that not many knew what was behind, Kid led the way in to the dark room. He hit a light switch and artificial light shone down in a circle on a series of beds, each having a Virtual Sphere on them. The small group of Meisters and weapons walked in tentatively, looking for someplace to put their things.

"Is anyone in here?" Patty called out.

"No"

Liz jumped out of her skin as they heard a voice out of the light speak. "Wh-who is that?" She shakily said.

"Nobody"

Liz turned herself into a gun and jumped into Patty's hand, "answer us".

In the area the voice originated from a light sparked into existence, some sort of a match was lit. A man's face burst into existence directly in front of Patty. "I am nobody". At this point, if Liz was in human form she would have soiled herself. As it was, most of the others were about to soil themselves.

Kid stepped in front of Patty, "Who are you?"

"I told you impatient meisters, I'm nobody.

The man entered the light circle, revealing that he was quiet aged.

"Why are you in here?" BlackStar asked, "You're stealing my spotlight!"

The man said nothing, but instead hobbled forward with a cane in his right hand. He walked past everyone, moving BlackStar out of the way with his cane. ("HEY!")

"Don't underestimate these things, I heard the government can blow up your mind with them." He said while leaving, "Conspiracies are everywhere."

As he opened the door to leave Spirit showed up in the frame. "What're you still doing here? We asked you to clean up and leave." He said

Spirit shoved his way past the old man, who was now recognized as the conspiratorial janitor. "I figured you guys would come here, we set up the Virtual Spheres with a preset simulation for training. Why don't you try it out?"

Maka sat down on one of the beds, "so long as you leave, we will."

Spirit's face grew red, "right, got it, when you guys want to begin you just put the helmet on, lie down, and say "link start", there's a tutorial all set up." He quickly left with his face acting like a beacon, no doubt off to the bar to pick up a hooker.

"Let's get started," Liz said, returning to her human form and finding a bed.

"Yeah" Soul growled out.

They sat down and finished setting up the Virtual Spheres, settling down on each of their individual beds.

"Link start!" They said in unison.

In each of their helmets a series of lights and sounds played out, illuminating their faces. Words floated across the screens, telling the DWMA students how to fully use the interactive software. Across the room, each of the meisters and weapons touched different parts of their bodies as they completed the synchronization of the Virtual Spheres to their bodies.

To Maka, it seemed as if she was entering a tunnel, and falling backwards through it. This experience reminded her of going to sleep, or simply falling through the ground as it moved around her, funnily: this relaxed her, it slowed her heart rate as adrenaline of the unknown rushed through her body. Then everything went black, and the Virtual Sphere began to run the attached software.


	3. Kirito

Kirito woke up on his bed and in a sweat. The virtual sphere came of his head, letting the sweat drip freely down his hair and off his face. "Damn that boss." He said to himself, "It's just plain cheap, unblock able attacks, sloppy movement, and takes way too many hits to kill."

Kirito sat up on his bed and set the virtual sphere on an adjacent desk, "why would the beta be this hard, if the beta is this hard then nobody will make it past floor one in the full version."

But before Kirito could even get up a massive rumbling filled the air: Kirito's stomach telling him that the next objective in his quest would be a sandwich. Aincrad had decent food, but it never actually filled Kirito up. Mind you their sandwiches far surpassed that of Kirito's, or his sister Suguha's, own meals.

He quickly got out of the bed and walked swiftly to the kitchen, Suguha, mostly known as Sugu, was in it herself, getting ready to leave.

Kirito walked right by here and opened up the fridge, getting all of his required materials. Meat, meat, meat, lettuce, bread, and meat just to name a few. The sandwich was hurriedly made, but will do to satiate his hunger.

"I'm going off to practice, big brother." Sugu said to Kirito as he took a bite of his food.

"Mffff" Kirito attempted to reply.

Sugu took that as a goodbye and left, hoisting a bag filled with light training swords over her shoulder. "Bye."

The door closed behind her.

Kirito finished off his food and cleaned his plate. Then walked back upstairs to replace the virtual sphere on his now sweat free head. A small buzz told him that he had powered it on, and the screen in front of his eyes flashed to life.

"Link, start!"

Like falling backwards, his mind delved into the world of Sword Art Online.

His avatar awoke in Frieven Village on floor 8, the village he stayed in before attempting to kill the boss. He was the only player at this high of a level, so there was no possibility of making a team to take down the boss, he would have to solo it.

But before he left, he took a deep breath and enjoyed the view. Frieven village was beautiful the first time he came through, and the second time was no different.

Birds were chirping as sunlight streamed between buildings, the fragrance of Aincradian spring wafting through to Kirito's senses. And NPCs roaming through the town looking for players to give quests to.

"HELP, I need someone to save my family!" One such NPC cried out as he ran around the town desperately.

Kirito ignored him, and instead headed straight for the edge of the town. On his back a scabbard materialized, preparing him for exiting the safe zone surrounding the town like a bubble.

Directly outside the safe zone, he saw a decently leveled Dwarf Warrior holding an axe and waiting for a player to leave the city. Kirito watched it pace back and forth, beady black eyes looking for unsuspecting prey.

A hiss of steel on leather caught the dwarf's attention. Kirito's blade shone in the sunlight as he brought it out, and the dwarf smiled and readied it's axe.

Kirito kept walking calmly towards the dwarf as it continually sized him up. Calmly closing the distance between the two to a mere five feet. Tension raised as they both stared each other down.

Then that tension broke like an overstretched bow string.

Kirito's blade glowed blue as he activated a sword skill and sprinted towards the dwarf, closing their space in less than half a second. "Bring it!" He challenged.

The glowing blade thrusted at the dwarf, going straight for its eye, but the dwarf brought its axe around to deflect the blade. Kirito stumbled forward and the dwarf kicked him as he went by.

Kirito saw his health go down by a small fraction and turned before the dwarf could press his advantage. But the dwarf didn't realize that fact and committed to a massive overhead strike.

Before the axe split his head open, Kirito sidestepped the strike, letting the axe dig into the dirt. The dwarf looked up at Kirito as it realized its mistake. The sword in Kirito's hand cut through the dwarf's skull like a knife through water.

The dwarf grunted as it became headless, and disappeared into code.

Before the fractals of ones and zeros fully vanished, Kirito sheathed his blade; knowing it was finished. A screen showing experience, gold, and loot gains appeared in front of him and he dismissed it. There wasn't enough time to watch every little screen.

But as Kirito set off once again for the boss' room, another small screen held a message.

"Forced transportation in 5...4...3...2...1."

And a light shone around Kirito, turning his avatar into data, and transferring him to God-knows-where.


	4. A beta's end

When Kirito felt his body resolidify, he was all the way back at the first area: The Town Of Beginnings. All around him, other Beta Testers were being warped in. One guy who had a bad Internet connection was lagged out of the world, showing his gamer tag, but no avatar.

"What's going on?" Kirito heard a few of the testers say. "We were just clearing out the floor two labyrinth."

A man in normal clothes, no armor or sword, stood up on a pedestal in the middle of the town.

"Sorry about that." He said to the hundred or so beta testers that were online. "My name is Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of Sword Art Online."

Gasps spread throughout the crowd, The creator has his own account?!

Kayaba continued, "I regret to tell you that today is the last day that the Beta version of SAO will be online. Since you are all online at this time you will be given a special treat."

A thud was heard from behind Kayaba.

"In a few weeks the full version of SAO will be released, so I will leave you with a good memory to end it."

A screen now appeared in front of Kirito and the other Beta Testers. Apparently they had all leveled up to level 100, increasing their stats astronomically. Not to mention they each received a legendary weapon.

Kirito chose the legendary sword as his weapon. A brand new blade appeared on his back, replacing the now much lower level sword.

Another thud from behind Kayaba, now much closer than the last. Kayaba was playing with a screen in front of him, and his clothes disappeared, now replaced by armor. The armor was made of Gold and Silver, with White Gold outlining the edges of it. A helmet made entirely of silver appeared over Kayaba's head, and a double edged blade appeared at his hip.

"Let's go out with a bang!" And Kayaba drew his weapon.

A hundred swords were drawn as the newly bad-ass beta testers armed themselves.

And the owner of the thuds showed itself.

Scales as large as a human torso, legs and arms taller than five men stacked on themselves, a column of flames spraying from its nostrils.

A dragon, scales black as the night sky covering it's whole body like iron armor. The dragon blew fire and roared, roasting a flock of birds that were too stupid to get out of the way.

Kayaba raised his sword up and the beta testers yelled and waved their blades; returning the dragon's challenge. A group of ten HP bars appeared representing the dragon's health, whose name appeared to be the Vaxsid the charred.

"Attack!" Kayaba yelled, pointing the blade at the dragon. And his small army of beta testers sprinted towards Vaxsid with battle cries on their lips.

Kirito got swept up in the charge and ran with his fellow warriors against the dragon, who opened its mouth and blew fire into the circular plaza.

"Take cover!" One or the testers yelled. And the small army ran for the nearby houses as flames bathed the ground.

The wave of fire dissipated as it hit the walls the testers had his behind, but two men were caught in the blast. They writhed on the ground, trying to smother the flames, but it was too late and their avatars dissolved as their HP hit zero. A one hit KO.

Kirito ran through the halls of the house, trying to escape the invasive flames, other testers close behind him. The flames were licking at the last person's heels when Kirito noticed a side closet and dove into it. The testers followed his lead and the flames passed by.

Outside, he heard the dragon roar, his prey had escaped.

Kirito rushed out of the closet and waved for the beta testers to follow him. They did so cautiously, as if expecting more flames to chase them down.

The dragon was paying attention to another house, where Kayaba was trying to rally his men to strike from behind. When he saw Kirito's group at the other house he motioned for them to attack.

Kirito charged in, slashing at the toe of the great beast, and taking of a scale. The men following him were too afraid to run in, probably expecting to be burned again. But the dragon sure felt his toe get cut open and swiped his tail across the ground.

The attack caught Kirito by surprise and swept him onto the ground. When he hit the ground the dragon started to slash at him, but Kirito rolled underneath it and scrambled away.

In the distraction he had caused, Kayaba and the other testers escaped their house and spread out.

They peppered it with sword skills while it was distracted by Kirito's escape. And when it turned its attention to them, Kayaba charged up his own sword skill. From his blade shone a golden light which focused on the dragon's eyes.

The now blinded dragon crashed it's claws across the street attempting to crush the testers.

It caught a few of them, knocking their avatars out of existence. But most were able to retreat right out of its reach.

Kirito ran around Vaxsid, ducking under its claws. And when its tail swept around he dived under it. The tail barely missed him, grazing his black hair as he went under it.

Kirito's sword raised, almost of its own volition, and bit into the dragon's tail. The dragon roared in pain and stepped to the side, trying to squish him. But suddenly a beta tester was there raising a shield in front of him.

The foot of the dragon pushed against the shield, cracking it, but it miraculously held. Kirito continued running around Vaxsid, slashing through its scales and generally being a nuisance to its health bar, which was halfway down.

Kayaba had rallied his men behind him and they attacked on the side opposite to Kirito and the man with the shield.

Kayaba issued a sever wound to the dragon as he cut off its toe, dropping the health bar by a percent. His tester army retreated as Kayaba got a little brave and stabbed his sword between the scales of Vaxsid's leg.

Vaxsid turned, driving the sword out of Kayaba's hand, and scrapped a claw towards him. Kayaba was caught on the side by the claw and was sent spinning off into the side of a house. His HP dropped astronomically, but he was able to walk away with his small army trying to distract the dragon.

Kirito was completely behind the dragon, who was entirely occupied with Kayaba and the testers. Kirito kept onto the back of Vaxsid and used his scales to climb. While Vaxsid's armor like scales were thick, they also prevented him from feeling the fly on his back.

Kirito climbed all the way to the nape of Vaxsid's neck and stood up.

The beta testers on the ground began to cheer and yell. Bashing their swords on any shield that they brought.

Unfortunately this allowed Vaxsid to gobble up some of them as they were distracted. Equally unfortunate is the fact that they alerted the dragon to his passenger.

Vaxsid reared up and flung his head, launching Kirito into the air above him. Kirito flew higher than the clock tower, and came straight down; flying fast towards Vaxsid's now open mouth.

As Kirito fell into the maw of the dragon he swung his sword to the side, catching the gum on his way down. He hung there, balanced, between the tooth and tongue of Vaxsid.

And as Vaxsid started to close his mouth, taking away Kirito's escape, Kirito jumped. He used his sword as a springboard and flung himself out of the dragon's mouth before it fully closed, landing on the nostrils of Vaxsid.

Vaxsid looked at him quizzically, like he was thinking shouldn't you be in my mouth. And Kirito shot back a look saying your breath absolutely reeks. And respawned his sword.

Giving a shout that every npc in Aincrad would hear, he unsheathed his sword and drove it through Vaxsid's eye.

Blood spurt from the wound, turning into data before dissipating. Vaxsid roared and shook his head, trying to throw Kirito off of his face.

Kirito held on, barely keeping his grip. But it couldn't last forever. With a mighty tug, the dragon flung Kirito off and into the side of a nearby house.

But it was too late. As Kirito slid to the ground, his health dropping precariously, the final red dot of the dragon's HP disappeared.

Vaxsid let out the loudest roar yet, shaking all of the glass in the town, and vanished.

Code fractals rained down on the beta testers who were still alive. Only ten out of the hundred who started remained, Kayaba and Kirito included. And as Kirito closed his eyes to relax, his vision grew dark on its own.

Before his eyes were the words: thanks for playing. And a countdown until the full release of SAO.

Kirito sighed, it would be forever until he could play again, and logged himself out.


	5. A little thief

Two months later.

* * *

A dark hallway greeted the nimble boy. Darkness was his ally, so this should be a cinch.

"Do you think this is a good idea?" A tall girl to his right asked, her concern evident in her motherly attitude.

The pair began to advance down the hallway, staying ready for any signs that a person would see or hear them. Cameras beeped as they moved, sweeping the hallway with their uncaring, yet predictable, gaze. This predictability allowed for the boy and girl to slip by them easily.

"Don't worry." The boy told the girl, "I've trained for this, there isn't any way I can mess up. I'm doing perfect as it is."

The cocky attitude fit his small stature like a glove, showing a clear need to compensate for his lack of height. Though he was right, so far nothing had gone wrong, no guards had seen them entering, and nobody could have seen them since then.

The girl followed closely behind the short boy, "But we're still stealing, are you confident that we would be able to not get caught." The pair dodged underneath a few more cameras and had reached the end of the hall. To their right was a wooden door with the words: 'Storage Closet' on it. The boy slowly opened the door and stepped in.

The girl instantly knew she had made a mistake, she mentioned confidence, something the boy clearly had an abundance of.

"Confidence? YAHOO! I'm so confident I can yell in here! Don't worry Tsubaki," BlackStar told his partner, and rather than told; he yelled. "Confidence is based entirely on skill, and that I have more than needed."

BlackStar and Tsubaki took a step into the storage room. Inside was hundreds of boxes, each with the words SAO on the side.

"I am the best at fighting!" BlackStar yelled, making a fist. "I am the fastest," now running in place. "And I am the sneakiness person here". At that point an alarm went off. BlackStar looked at his feet and saw that he had stepped on top of an alarm trip wire.

"Damn it."

Red lights flashed as Tsubaki and BlackStar filled up a backpack they had brought with as much of the box's contents as they could.

"I told you-". Tsubaki started before being interrupted by BlackStar.

"Say it later, now is no time to gloat. Rub it in once we're out of here."

they zipped up the backpack and slung it over BlackStar's arm, then hustled straight for the door. Before they could even get through, a man in an armored vest shoved through the doorframe and pushed BlackStar and Tsubaki backwards.

"What is it you think you're doing?" He asked as other men dressed like him and holding guns swarmed into the room. All of the men had on goggles and armor that made them look futuristic. Their guns were a model that BlackStar had never seen before, but still retained a familiar threatening glare.

"Ah for Death's sake." BlackStar groaned, "We got lost looking for a bathroom." Tsubaki nodded furiously with BlackStar's statement. "That's right! Now if you could direct us to where to go..."

The man in the armored vest looked at them, then the backpack; "Like he'll I'll believe that, two kids getting stuck in a video game factory. And then they mysteriously get lost in the room where we are keeping the biggest game since call of duty." He smiled at them, but his eyes didn't reflect the smile. "Now, you're going to get out of this room before we make you get out."

He pulled out some sort of an staff and pressed a button on it, the staff crackled, electricity arcing across the tip. The guards behind him, of which there was five, did the same. "Get out you freaking kid," one of them said.

BlackStar and Tsubaki retreated slowly, backing into one of the boxes. Tsubaki placed her hand on BlackStar's shoulder, "No hurting any of them this time."

"If they shock me, I'm gonna hurt them. No matter what you say."

A sigh emanated from Tsubaki, "Fine, but no killing any of them."

"YAHOO!"

The captain of the guards looked at the excited boy, excited about hurting them. "Don't worry men, he's just a kid." A menacing sneer replaced his smile, and he raised the stun rod at BlackStar, "Now you are going to start walking towards the exit, without that backpack of yours, or things might get a little bit... shocking."

BlackStar groaned at the impromptu pun, "Really?" He asked the captain, "That's what you're going with? Shocking? Fine," and he readied himself, "Prepare to get that ass of yours handed up to your face on a golden platter. Tsubaki! Chainsickle mode!"

"Got it!" And Tsubaki jumped into the air, much higher than a normal human could ever pull off, and a purple glow surrounded her body. Her clothes dissipated, and the skin underneath turned into cold steel. When she came down again, she was turned into two sickles connected by a chain. BlackStar caught his partner and spun the sickles around experimentally, testing the speed and balance.

The guards saw this and a chill ran through all of them, their thoughts all seemed to resonate the same thing, _This boy is a maester, but how trained is he?_

"Are you ready Tsubaki?" BlackStar asked the chainsickle. "Yeah, I'm ready to go!"

With that BlackStar rushed forward, running low to the ground to make himself into a smaller target. "YAHOO!"

The captain watched him approach in disbelief, how could somebody move that fast. _No matter,_ he thought, _once this boy get's a bit of electricity in his veins he will be crying for mercy._

"Get him!" The captain yelled to his men, urging them to strike the boy who was bearing down on them faster than any of them could move.

BlackStar ran up to the first guard, and before he could react, slid himself through the man's legs. While he slid through the opening, the Tsubaki's chain wrapped around his legs, sweeping him off of his feet. The guard fell to the ground, his arms and legs splayed out eagle faced, and his stun staff falling from his hands.

The fallen guard tried to spin himself around and return the favor to BlackStar's legs, but the kid ninja was already moving on to his next victim. The guard next in line also fell to BlackStar's sweeping technique, but his fellows now reacted to the attack. They backed up and spread out, all holding their staffs at arms length so as to space him out. But with only four people left, they didn't have too much of an attacking force to work with. Their two fallen companions were slowly getting up, the wind knocked clean out of them.

BlackStar tried to approach another guard, but was poked back by the other three's electric staffs.

"I think it's time for us to go, Tsubaki." BlackStar said rather casually, "These guys haven't shocked me yet, so I won't hurt them. But our friends might want to see what we got for them."

"You are in no way leaving this room with Sword Art Online!" The captain yelled and threw his staff at BlackStar.

The staff flew in the air like a javelin and hit BlackStar right on his arm. Electricity coursed through BlackStar's body, pinching each of his nerves as it ran through his blood stream, the pain was excruciating, though not unbearable.

BlackStar spit, some blood had congealed in his saliva, but it wasn't life threatening.

The other guards looked at their captain in horror, he deliberately did what this kid had said for him not to do. He was tempting death right here, and they wanted none of it.

The three remaining guards threw down their staffs and held their hands up in surrender, "We aren't going to tell anyone, just don't kill us." The one on the far right said.

The captain stared at his cowardly men, "You cowards," he spat at them, "You are threatened for one second and you surrender. You're all fired, get up and walk away."

The men quickly and quietly obliged, dragging away their two downed compatriots.

BlackStar was confident in his abilities, but with electricity stiffening his movements and weakening him he was unsure. However, the captain no longer had his weapon, and instead held up his fists. "Come on, shorty, put them up like a man. Or are you just bark and no bite."

"Hey, Tsubaki, I've got this."

Tsubaki turned back into her human self, clothes returning to her body, and her skin becoming human once again. She backed up a bit, waiting to see the captain's look when he realizes the mistake he made.

BlackStar put up his fists, ready for the first strike. And a first strike was all that happened, the captain swung a massive right hook. The fist was powerful and deadly, with all the man's power and skill behind it. But it was also slow.

The dodge BlackStar did was so easy it was contemptous, but he was still a mile away from the fist as it passed. The meaty knuckles only hit air as they passed by, whiffing on their target.

Once out of the way of the punch, BlackStar turned his body, fully rotating, and swept the legs of the captain out from underneath him with a sweep. The man fell downwards, completely open to punishment. BlackStar put his soul into the punch, and struck the captain with such force that the large man flew backwards into a wall, cracking the mortar.

The captain slid to the ground, bones broken and blood flowing from cuts in his head and back.

"You will not tell anybody that I was here," BlackStar told him as the captain struggled to retain consciousness, "If you tell anybody, I will be back and there will be much more punishment, you might not even survive."

BlackStar and Tsubaki left the room, once again following a path to avoid the camera's gaze, and ran back to the entrance of the factory. As they left the factory, nobody stopped them or questioned them, their mission was a success. The two of them walked into the cool Tokyo breeze and left for their home in Death City.


	6. The new Games

"What game is this?" Liz asked Kid as he showed them the package.

"I had the DWMA's development department modify one of the greatest games I've ever seen to be virtual reality."

Liz, Patty, and Kid were walking past the basketball courts on their way to Soul's house with their virtual spheres and a new game. Kid hadn't shown Liz or Patty his game yet, saying that it is a game like no other.

"Please don't tell me that it is another Mortal Kombat game, that was enough of a fiasco the first time you tried that." Liz moaned, "If you tell me that it is a Mortal Kombat I will get Patty to shoot you."

The first time Kid had brought a game, it was a modified Mortal Kombat game. The first person who had wanted to try it out was BlackStar, and he attempted to fight Johnny Cage on his own. BlackStar's eager cry of "YAHOOO!" turned into a whimper of pain as his balls were launched into his pancreas. That pain quickly was turned into rage, and by the time BlackStar had won the fight he was angrier than Ragnarok with a week without sweets. When the announcer yelled for Blackstar to "Finish Him!", BlackStar went into a blood rage, beating Cage with his soul power until Cage was a puddle of blood on the floor.

Kid then tried to fight Liu Kang, and was so appalled by how his own blood fell when Liu Kang hit him that he quit the fight and huddled into a ball in the corner of the room.

Since then Kid had not brought in any games, though it was unanimously agreed among the group that Patty's game, goat simulator, was worse.

"Nope," Kid said, "that was bad enough the first time around; I had the shakes for hours after that. This game is a hundred times better."

"It better be," Liz told him, "Patty still had nightmares about going to the Nether Realm with Scorpion."

Liz tried to say that as quietly as possible, so Patty couldn't hear her, but to no avail. Patty turned her body to stare at her sister with cold, pitiless eyes. Patty's hands started to shake and the one time cheerful voice was ice cold, dripping with fear.

"I thought he was a nice man, nice man, nice man. But he owned lava, so much lava. My skull melting, skin phasing off of my own face to fall into the burning hellfire."

Liz rolled her eyes as Patty started, "Oh great, not again." She snapped a finger in front of Patty's eyes, "think of giraffes, not lava, giraffes."

"Okay sis!" Patty's cheerful voice was back.

"Thank Death."

When they got to Soul's place, a black cat greeted them. "Hi guys," it meowed quietly as it pawed up to them.

The cat was then surrounded by a glow. The glow obscured the cat's features, making it difficult to see the transformation, but when the glow faded away there was no longer a cat standing in front of them. It was now a large-breasted woman; a naked, large-breasted woman.

"I was feeling slightly playful today," she purred seductively, "does anyone want to play with me?"

A line of red liquid slowly oozed out of Kid's nose, running down his face to drip on the ground. He stopped moving and stared at the breasts, locked in some sort of a titillation trance.

"Ah… no." Liz told Blair while turning to grab the motionless Kid. Liz grabbed Kid under the arms and started to drag him to the front door. "Patty, help me out!" she called to her sister while Kid's heels dragged lifelessly on the ground.

"Okay!"

Together they were able to get Kid to the front door before he bled out through his nostrils. Liz knocked on the door with her only free appendage, her foot, and Maka answered the door.

"Hey guys, everyone but BlackStar and Tsubaki are here in the living room. And do you need some help with Kid?". Though Kid still hadn't moved, despite being out of Blair's view for a minute now, moans now emanated from his body. Blair watched the progressions from the front porch with feigned interest in a butterfly that was now fluttering past, her eyes as wide as a kitten's even though she was in human form. The blood on Kid's nose crusted over; forming a shell on his upper lip, and drool was dripping from his mouth onto his chin.

"Yeah," Liz said, "Some help would be nice."

The trio of Kid-draggers were able to get him through the door and into the living room before they, and Kid, fell onto couches. Soul was chilling on a chair next to the couches, and looked up as the group collapsed. "Blair's looking for another plaything?"

Maka was heaving and could hardly manage out a yes, it was a common enough occurrence and they needed to talk to Blair about not looking at every male as some sort of sex toy.

On the couches were seated Maka, Soul, Liz Patty, Kid, and Crona. Of the small group there, only one was not interested in how the small group arrived, and that's because Ragnarok was pulling on his ears until they bled.

"Stop it Ragnarok, that hurts!" Crona started to yell as bood dripped down his cheeks.

"Hardly," Ragnarok yelled back, "You didn't buy me any snacks today so this is completely worth it. It's only your fault that your ears are filled with blood."

"But I don't have any money!"

"You could've gotten a job!"

"Everyone was scared off by you sticking out of my back and eating any candy in sight, I wasn't hired anywhere."

"There's other options!"

"MAKA CHOP!"

Maka interrupted the exchange between Ragnarok and Crona with a hard cover book to the back of Ragnarok's head. Ragnarok shrieked and grabbed at the quickly forming bump on his skull. The black bump on the creature raised itself up, looking like a golf ball had dug it's way underneath Ragnarok's skin to perch on its skull.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Ragnarok shrieked, "Where do you keep those books!?"

Maka didn't bother to answer it and instead looked at Kid, who had broken out of the daze caused by Blair's bouncing Buddhas due to Ragnarok's shriek. "How big are those tits?" Kid moaned, clutching his head like he had some sort of a headache.

"Big enough to suffocate a horse," Soul replied. Maka looked at her own chest self-consciously, still as flat as Ragnarok's sword form. She wished that they would start developing already. Guys never looked at her, they only stared at Tsubaki or Liz.

But she forced those thoughts out of her mind, "You said that you're bringing over a game?" Maka asked Kid.

"Yes," Kid said, his weariness at coming out of a Bikini Stuffer Coma disappearing, "this is the best game I have ever seen. It is perfection incarnate." And Kid pulled a game box from his bag, his face radiating pure joy as everyone basked in the glory of his game.

"Quilting Simulator?" Soul asked, "You brought over a quilting simulator?"

"Yes, and it is just so symmetrical and perfect. Just look at how precise the lines are in this rug, it is absolutely beautiful. And observe the lattice in this scarf, it is completely clean cut."

Kid held the disk right up to his face, puckering his lips to kiss it. Nearly everyone in the room gagged. Kid's lips were an inch away from the disk when a tinkle of glass filled the air and a sword sprouted from the disk.

The blade was removed from the game disk as it fell to the ground broken. Tears filled Kid's eyes as he saw his only true love split into pieces just like his heart. The owner of the sword let his blade turn back into its human self.

"I've got a game a hundred times better than that crap." BlackStar told everyone's surprised faces.

"BlackStar?" Soul sputtered, "How did you get in?"

"You just weren't looking for me, and with my superior skills at being hidden there would be no way you could find me even if you were looking for me."

Glass tinkled musically and everyone looked to the side to see a window now hanging in as many pieces as Kid's game. Soul glared at BlackStar, "You had better pay me for the damages."

BlackStar scoffed at paying, "I've got a much better payment," he told them, "check this game out." He set down a bag on the table and unzipped it.

Inside was a pile of game boxes, each labeled with the same thing.

SAO

"YOU'RE PAYING ME FOR A BROKEN WINDOW WITH A VIDEO GAME?!"


	7. Welcome to SAO

"Link Start!"

The darkness forming Soul's world melded and twisted to form a single screen with the words 'welcome to SAO'. Soul felt his body and clothes change; the former growing taller and skinnier, and the latter matching his new body and becoming some sort of tunic with an X strap.

"Wow," He said while inspecting the outfit, "Who chooses the style for starters in SAO? Not cool at all."

screen displaying 'Welcome to SAO' became white and expanded, enveloping Soul. A quick look around told Soul that he was above some sort of town. In the town was numerous buildings, markets, a clocktower, and a town square.

Data flashed on Soul's vision and suddenly he was standing in the middle of the town square. A Heads Up Display, his hud, appeared in his vision, showing his name, HP, level, and miscellaneous stats.

Soul felt something clank into existence at his belt and freedom was given to Soul, the world of Sword Art Online now at his disposal.

All around Soul other players entered the world, morphing from streams of data into humans. They were all different people, some girls and others boys, all skin colors, all races; but everybody wore the same lame clothes.

"Now to find the others," Soul said, "I doubt they could be too far."

He was right, standing on the west end of the square was a group of players that looked in no way like their DWMA counterparts, but held themselves like fighters and they used their personal gamertags.

Soul joined the group and looked around, his own gamertag was ScytheBlade71, and looking back at him was MChop, Maka; BlackBlood, Crona; HeavenlyMaster, BlackStar; Tsubai, Tsubaki; Orderly8, Kid; Geraf, Patty; and Liz, who accidently made her username her own name and was being teased for it.

"Hey guys," Soul said, "It's me, Soul."

"We know that," Liz said, "we can see your username."

All of the group carried the rusty starter swords at either their hips or backs. None of them knew how to use a sword proficiently, save for BlackStar and Crona, and the group set out for the surrounding countryside to practice.

They jested as they walked, teasing Maka for how she made her in game avatar. Maka's avatar, in fact, had breasts that were very close to Blair's size and Maka was somewhat unbalanced by them.

"How will you fight with those weighing you down?" BlackStar asked. BlackStar's own avatar was a musclebound freak of nature which had pecs larger than most people's heads.

"Why don't we have a little fight right now?" Maka replied, "Your narcissism will probably weigh you down more than these."

BlackStar walked next to Maka in silence for a small bit, then bumped her with his elbow as they were walking through a meadow. A normally nimble Maka became unbalanced at her chest and fell over, flopping like a fish on the ground as she tried to recover her dignity, but only working to intice friendly laughter from her friends. Maka smiled in spite of herself, then swept BlackStar's legs out from underneath him. The musclebound boy tumbled down next to Maka, surprised, then lay there laughing.

The sounds of joyous laughter split the countryside, unfortunately drawing the unwelcomed attention of others.

The howl of a wolf rammed through the group's laughter. They instantly stopped their laughing, picked Maka and BlackStar up, and tried to pinpoint the wolf's location.

"Swords out, guys." Kid told everyone, drawing out his own blade and holding it out in both hands. The hissing of metal was heard as six swords left sheathes. Each fighter scanned a different area of their surroundings, Soul staring at a ridgeline around twenty feet away. Soul tensed up as he saw a small black sliver slide out of sight behind the ridge.

"One's behind that ridge." He told the group while pointing it out, "think there's any more?"

"Wolves hunt in packs." Crona said while trying to control his shaking hands, "There's going to be others all right. Only question now is how to deal with them."

As if marking his words, black shapes appeared at the top of the ridge and moved over it and down towards the small group of players; the wolves. They split the grass like shadowey chisils, slowly padding their way towards the player in front, Soul. Soul spread his legs and got lower to the ground, muscles ready for instant action.

"We've got five to deal with," Soul counted, "Split up into groups of Meister and their weapons and we can take them. Patty, Crona doesn't need to have Ragnarok, team up with him." A small black bump on Crona's neck throbbed, "I'm not needed?!" It shrieked.

"No," Kid replied, "It's up to us to play the game. If Crona's about to lose his last HP then you need to join in, but otherwise we should be fine. On that note we shouldn't use any soul powers, might as well have fun with it."

If the threat of steel rattled the wolves at all, they didn't show it. The only emotions that were emenating from them was hatred and evil, no compassion or fear.

"When they reach within three feet, we need to attack." Maka inputted. But that would not be the case as when the five wolves were six feet away they split up and surrounded the group of eight players. Wolves and humans sized each other up cautiously, each taking no risks. Then one wolf leapt at his target, and all hell broke loose into a skirmish.

The humans of the group yelled out battle cries and swung themselves towards their own wolves, blades flashing in their hands. Despite their lack of finesse with swords, they fought hard, driving the wolves by poking at them and preventing themselves from getting an opening. But while Tsubaki stepped forward to jab at her wolf, a rock underneath her shoe slid and sent her off balance.

The demonic red eyes and pale teeth swung themselves towards Tsubaki's throat, driving in for a killing blow. BlackStar's blade intercepted it a foot before the wolf could touch Tsubaki, and the rusty sword pierced data to drive itself into the skull, gaining a kill of its own.

The wolf fell to the ground and dissapeared, one down and four to go.

Crona's wolf was the next to make a mistake, it charged down at Patty at tried to bite at her ankles and take her feet off. She jumped back while slashing downwards at it. The blade cut off some tufts of fur, but was no sure blow. The wolf tried to retreat, but as it had tried to bite Patty's legs, it's own legs were bit by Crona's blade. Crona had swung himself around to a low sweeping strike and hit on the wolf's front two paws. The wolf went down in pain, data dripping like blood from it's front paws and it tried to limp off until Patty drove her sword downwards on its spine. The blade rammed itself through the spinal column, catching on the muscles and bones, and ended a second enemy.

Crona and Patty took a break and looked at each other with weary smiles, then rejoined the battle with the other's wolves.

Soul and Maka took the wolf who considered itself a leader, and their fight was going much worse than the other's. The wolf had already slashed at Maka's legs and because she was off balance due to her obnoxiously large breasts, the claws raked down her legs. This dropped her HP by half, another hit would be her last for that fight. Crona jumped into the fight with his own rusty sword spinning a web of steel around the wolf, allowing Maka to retreat into the center of the group. The wolf backed off as he saw the wall of steel and considered the new fighter who dispatched one of his own packmates. It only got one look as Soul took advantage and drove his sword through its ribcage, driving the wolf back into code.

Kid's wolf stood no chance against the young shinigami, while Kid trained with guns primarily, his skills extended far beyond those. His wolf met its own doom much faster than anyone could anticipate, and there was only one wolf left.

The wolf hung back from the battle, keen on letting his companions die first so he could see what is going on. A cowards choice, Soul believed, and the wolf ran away as it saw its pack get decimated by the group of players.

The fight ended with a screen showing experience and loot gain, most of the crew leveled up and were congratulating the others on how they fought.

Then a white glow surrounded them and they were back at the town suare.

"A forced teleport?" A black haired teen to their right said to a redheaded man.

That was when Akihiko Kayaba showed himself.

When dissapointment flooded Maka's face as her developed avatar morphed back into her own body.

When the DWMA students learned how much of a mistake BlackStar made by stealing the game.

SAO had turned into a deadly game.


	8. Deciding actions

"What the hell kind of game creator is Kayaba?!" Liz said, sitting down on the bed in the inn room they rented. It was close to the center of the Town Of Beginnings, and a balcony outside gave them a sickening view of where Kayaba had sprouted from. "He's absolutely insane."

"Clearly," Kid said. "When the DWMA gets an war of what happened, he'll have Meisters breaking down his door. Odds are that even Dr. Stein would be at the forefront of the assault, he likes us."

A smile crossed Soul's face as he had a vision of Kayaba being flayed within an inch of his life. Then waking up to find brand new scars and patchwork skin. Horror would fill his face as he realizes that Stein had taken him apart while he slept and did Death-knows-what to his body.

Maka was seated on her own bed in silence, with her eyes glazed over. But when Kid mentioned the DWMA coming to their rescue, they returned to their normal sheen. Feeling seemed to return to her conscious.

"We've got a chance," she whispered to herself. She then looked at the others and addressed them. "What do we do in the meantime?"

"Huh?"

"What do we do while we wait? It will still take time for the rescue to happen, so what do we do while we're waiting for that?"

"Play the game." BlackStar told her resolutely.

"And risk death?" Maka countered.

"What choice do we really have?" He told her, "You heard Kayaba as clearly as we did, he wants to mess with this world. What's to stop him from destroying anybody who doesn't advance in the game with his own brand of apocalypse. We need to move on and get stronger, level up, get weapons we can actually use. He said yesterday that he is god here, let's see how godly he is when we kick the 100th level's boss."

Maka was firm, "If we make one mistake in here, then it would be the same like in a fight in the outside world. We risk death as surely as we did against Medusa or Arachne. In case you didn't notice yesterday, BlackStar, in one hit my HP was cut in half. I was one hit to death and I didn't even notice it. Death! BlackStar. Not respawning, DEATH."

BlackStar walked around the inn room, looking at his companions who were nodding their agreement to Maka's reasoning. He needed to sway them back.

BlackStar held up a fist and showed it to the group. Thy watches it start to sparkle as he pumped his soul power into it. "Look at this,".he said while waving about his fist, "yesterday we fought with weapons that we're not used to and generally were horrible. We have weapons that nobody else could ever have, we are Meisters. Kayaba could never account for the modified Virtual Spheres that we have. All it will take is a small bit of coding to make our souls viable weapons once again! We need to get stronger and fight." BlackStar paused and regained his breath.

"If not for our own lives then the lives around us. Each avatar here is a person, a living breathing man, woman, child who is on a video game expecting fun, but instead forced to fight for a single man's amusement. This is like the gladiator fights of Rome, deadly entertainment. I plan on saving as many people as possible, and I need to get stronger to do that. At least you agree with me, right Soul?"

Soul looked at BlackStar, now looking like his normal self, then Maka, who pleaded silently with him. Soul sighed and closed his eyes.

"I agree with BlackStar. We are the DWMA, it's our job to protect those who can't be protected." He turned his arm into a scythe and looked to Maka, "we need our teams, we won't lose."

Now the group was nodding their agreement to BlackStar's reasoning. Only Maka remained against, but her resolve dissolved and she nodded her assent, "What do we do first then?" She asked.

BlackStar opened his mouth, but Kid interrupted. "We need our real weapons back. I picked up a little bit of how we can code out our soul weaponry into the game from the R&D department at the DWMA. Our weapons will not be overpowered, but I can scale their damage output an effects to our level. This means that we always have an option to use them."

"Can we disguise our weapons? So that the game's programs don't find us and delete us?" Crona asked, the black bump of Ragnarok throbbing slightly.

"Only our own virtual spheres can see our soul weapons, everyone else would see un textured polygons. But we can change them to look like blades."

Maka nodded, "what are you waiting for then? Might as well get started."

Kid coded their souls into games before, changing games like Slender into a game where you're hunting him. This created for some also entertaining moments on an old game called CALL OF DUTY. While the AIs ran themselves into walls, the students waded through them, hacking and slashing to their heart's content.

So while Kid worked on that, Maka and Soul took a walk in the market to get some supplies. Soul was thinking about ways to beat the game, and a funny thought popped into his head.

"Y'know something, Maka?" Soul said while they looked at food, "We should give you a copy of 'War and Peace'. You'll beat this game in a day and a half."

"Shut it Soul."

"I remember this one book that I saw. It was a complete works of Shakespeare, all in one book. Over nine thousand pages. If you would be able to hold it, you could probably one shot a boss."

"I'm warning you, Soul, one more word."

"You'd be a force to be reckoned with."

"MAKA CHOP!"

Soul blocked the heavy hardback book with his arm, severely bruising the poor limb.

"Seriously though, where do you keep those books."

Maka looked at her outfit, the standard outfit for SAO players, then the X strap that she pulled the book from. Reality seemed i bend when she pulled out her Maka Chop.

"I... Have no clue." Confusion was more than evident.

"Maybe it's like a soul power or something?"

"I dunno."

They gathered supplies that day in relative confusion. Waiting for the hour when they'd be a proper Meisters and weapon combo in the game. Kayaba better watch himself.


	9. Testing time

"Alright Maka, let's try this out."

The group from the DWMA walked through the first floor forest with blades sheathed, now was not the time to fight with sword, but souls. The only blades out were BlackStar's and Crona's, as they were the ones who actually understood the minor intricacies of sword fighting. Kid had finally figured out enough to recreate their souls into weapons for this game. Soul's words to Maka were from him seeing a dire wolf behind a bush, time to test it out. Maka nodded and walked forward with Soul."

Soul gripped Maka's hand, then accessed his power. The white hot rush of his energy flowed into his body and he formed it into a weapon, his skin melded into steel, bones into the spine of the scythe, and Maka held onto his hand, which was now a tight grip on the shaft of the weapon. Soul's transformation was complete.

The wolf looked up from where it had been crunching on some bloody stump of meat and saw only Maka standing in front of it. It growled a challenge and left its dead prey to remain on the ground. The wolf was all alone, its pack having left it behind after it came of age to leave. If the pack had been there, that low growl would've swiftly grown into a flash of teeth. However it played safe and began to circle around Maka and Soul.

Maka tracked the wolf around her, not letting it out of her sight. Soul's handle was light as the air around her and she spun the scythe deftly, the weapon humming as it traversed the air.

"C'mon you stupid mutt." Maka mumbled under her breath, patience running out as the wolf sized her up. Then as Maka turned to keep facing the wolf, a rock under her feet slipped and she stumbled slightly.

No matter how small the fault was, the beast sensed it and leaped at her. The blood enraged snarling emanated from the throat of the wolf as it flew through the air at Maka, who recovered quickly and was waiting for it.

Maka caught the wolf's leap with Soul's handle, then threw the wolf off to the side. The mangy wolf slid a few feet on the leaves of the forest, then got back to its feet. The fight wasn't at its end however, as Maka lunged with Soul facing the wolf. And the scythe cut straight through the wolf's muzzle to remove the lower jawbone from its hinge.

This wolf in particular fell to the ground with data leaking from only half of a mouth, it's HP depleted, death inevitable. It exploded into data particles. Soul turned back into his human form, and both him and Maka checked on their loot gains to discover that they both received the rewards.

"So it works." Kid said, walking up behind them with the rest of the group close behind. "Glad it does, otherwise that would've been a rather nasty surprise. That one's teeth were sharp."

Soul smiled devilishly, "I'm sharper."

"True, but is your data compatible? We just got that answered. Time to test out the other weapons. BlackStar? You and Tsubaki are next."

BlackStar stepped forward and Tsubaki flew into his hand in chainsickle form. The group continued deeper into the forest until they encountered a second wolf, this one in a pack, but had wandered slightly away. BlackStar and Tsubaki rushed off.

This wolf fell just as quickly, if not quicker, than Maka's. BlackStar lured it into attacking, let it leap at him, then moved aside to reveal a tree. The wolf, now stunned, was easy prey for Tsubaki's sharp edges. The chainsickle bit into the wolf to end it while it was fazed.

"Alrighty then, Crona, your turn."

"Okay."

The black bump at his neck turned into the creature known as Ragnarok. Ragnarok switched form from bump to creature to sword, and ran himself into Crona's hand without a word. He was still annoyed that there really was no candy in Aincrad.

The wolf pack was padding softly towards the group and Crona noticed them while they attempted to sneak around their packmate's body.

"Screech alpha"

The explosion that ensued absolutely decimated the wolf pack, leaving no survivors and Crona a nice pile of loot. Not to mention a level up from destroying all those wolves at the same time.

The group watched with eyes wide and mouths open as a Crona demolished enemies that may have given them trouble had they been using the weapons the game gave them.

"So how was that?" Crona asked.

"I think we need more enemies." Kid responded.

They scoured the forest for the next ten minutes, looking for enemies. Yet none were found, either someone killed them all, or they never respawned. They kept searching though, and a thud brought them to realize where an enemy was. The thud came from the east, and they followed the tracks left by it as it plodded through the forest. When they finally found the monster, their surprise was evident.

"What the hell." Liz mumbled, "that thing's massive."

"Liz!" Kid called out, "Patty! To me!" Liz and Patty turned themselves into the ranged weapons Kid so specialized in and Kid caught them as they fell into his hands. He reversed his grips into his traditional stance of a reversed holds.

He aimed down the sights and fired at the enemy.

The enemy looked at the blasts as they flew towards it, and walked right through the gun shots. The enemy itself was rather large, towering over everyone there and even reaching the middle branches of the taller trees. It looked somewhat like a pitcher plant, with a red fruit in the middle of where it's head would be. An HP bar showed up on the group's HUDs revealing the name of the monster. The Little Nepent.

The HP part of the enemy's statistics dropped by a small fraction, Kid's attacks doing next to no damage.

"Oh crap!" Kid yelled and dodged backwards as the Nepent flung itself at Kid, attempting to crush him. Kid's backwards roll took him into the middle of the DWMA group and they helped him to his feet as the Nepent got back up. The meisters nodded to their weapons, and everybody armed themselves. By either grabbing their weapon, or turning their arm into a weapon.

The nepent flung itself at the group again, and they scattered like leaves. Kid popped right back up from his roll and pummeled the Nepent with his barrage of bullets. BlackStar and Maka ran in as the Nepent tried to get up and slashed through its stubby legs with Tsubaki's enchanted sword form and Soul's scythe form. Crona hung back from the battle and waited until Maka and BlackStar retreated, then blasted the Nepent with screech beta.

The health dropped by an eighth. Barely rewarding the efforts of the DWMA students.

"I was forced to make the weapons scale their damage to our level. The higher level we are, the better our weapons are, so as it is, we are at a very low level right now and can't fight to our best!" Kid yelled out, "Thought you might want to know!"

"Could've used the info earlier!" BlackStar yelled back and slashed at the body of the Nepent as it rushed him down, then rolled to the left and let the Nepent crush a tree trunk instead. "YAHOO!" He jumped after rolling away onto the Nepent's back and slid Tsubaki down the spine of the plant.

The Nepent felt BlackStar there and turned, yanking him around and putting Tsubaki out of his grasp as he flew off of its back. Tsubaki remained there and was forced to return to human form and escape the Nepent before it crushed her. The Nepent looked down to see the girl run towards BlackStar, who had hit his head on one of the trees and was dazed for a moment. Then it charged at her, ground shaking as it crashed through shrubs and stumps to have a murderous line straight towards the unarmed Tsubaki.

"NO!" Maka screamed and threw Soul at the Nepent, but missed and Soul sliced into a tree behind the Nepent. He returned to his own human form and looked to Tsubaki, who was just turning to see the shadow of the beast towering over her. Tsubaki stumbled backwards onto her rear and held up her arms in futile protection.

Then the monster dissolved into code.

Standing where the monster was, was a boy dressed in the standard starter's outfit for SAO and holding his own blade. He sheathed the blade on a scabbard hooked to his back, and dismissed the loot gain screen.

"You guys okay?" He asked Tsubaki and BlackStar.

She looked up at him from where she sat, "Yeah, thanks. But... who are you."

The boy helped Tsubaki and BlackStar up, "My name's Kirito, nice to meet you."


	10. Kirito's advice

"Did you just take out that Nepent in one hit?" BlackStar asked Kirito, still a little dazed from his flying headbutt into a tree. Kirito shrugged, "You guys took down a good portion of it's energy. I only finished it off." BlackStar frowned, then shook himself like a dog shakes off water. He got off the ground and held out a hand to Kirito.

"Either way, you saved my friend. Thanks." While Kirito was distracted with BlackStar, the others changed back into their human forms.

Kirito took the hand, then looked at the now bigger group surrounding him. Most were eating or drinking health items to recover what they lost.

"Who are all of you?"

The group introduced themselves by their real names, not their screennames, except for Liz, who technically told him both. BlackStar had a fervor in his eyes when talking to Kirito, and his next question revealed what the fervor was based on.

"So how did you get so strong?"

Kirito smiled and pulled out his blade. "I see that you still have your starting blades, so you might want to visit the next town to get this sword from a quest. It should last all the way to the third floor. But I've also been power grinding with it against these Nepents for the past day."

"Grinding?" Liz asked.

"Have you ever played an RPG before?"

"Nope."

"Well grinding is when you fight a lot of enemies in order to quickly level up. You aren't doing any quests or side quests really, but instead just walking around and looking for enemies to kill."

Liz thought about that for a moment, "So what level are you?"

"Ten."

Liz's jaw went slack.

"Ten?" Maka asked Kirito, sure she heard wrong, "You're level ten?"

"Yep, grinding works. Why do you think most people who've played RPGs before do that to quickly level up?"

BlackStar smiled, "How do you grind?"

Kirito opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a boom sounded in the distance, the sound of a Nepent walking. Kirito re-sheathed his blade without saying anything and started walking towards the noise.

"Come with me and I'll tell you."

Soul shrugged and followed, the others quickly catching up. They walked in silence for a while before running into a dire wolf. Crona killed it quickly with his sword, and only then did Kirito continue his thought on grinding.

"So you guys are good enough to take down dire wolves, but struggle with a Nepent? You're all levels three or four, aren't you?"

They nodded.

"So what you want to do is find an enemy that is somewhat easy for you to kill, and kill a lot of the. Once you're strong enough to take down an enemy a little bit stronger, you move on to that one and do the same thing. You're constantly leveling up and fighting better enemies, who also drop better loot, and maintaining a constantly increasing stream of experience."

BlackStar filed that bit of information away for later reference.

"I've been grinding on Nepents, no not in that kind of way, for a while. So I've got some advice for you, if you're ever stuck fighting one. It's got a weak back. If you need to fight, have one person run distraction while the others cut through it. We'll practice on the Nepent we're following."

Soul thought for a moment, "But what about you?" he asked Kirito.

"Me?"

"Yeah, I don't see anyone near you who could be part of a group. You're all alone, so how do you defeat Nepents on your own?"

"I'm a solo player." Kirito told Soul, "so I've been using faster speed and greater maneuverability to get around my enemies. I also have higher power than most others, due to where I'm leveling up my stats, so my being a solo player normally works out. And if I get in trouble, I can just run away."

Tsubaki listened and nodded, "Okay, but why don't you find a group? It's dangerous alone, hell, it's dangerous no matter what. That's the nature of this game, you'd be safer with friends."

A memory of Klein asking him to stay and go with his own friends plagued Kirito. He denied himself the perks of being in a group, and friends, that day. Opting for more power instead.

"I'm.." he paused, "better as a solo player."

Tsubaki had the tact to not push the subject with Kirito, noticing his pause, and instead the conversation turned to weapons. Kid was wondering about ranged weaponry in the game and Kirito's answer was, unfortunately, negative. He told Kid that there's basically nothing ranged in the whole game, only melee weapons. Kid scowled as he heard the news, but when Kirito asked him about the scowl, Kid passed it off as him preferring guns in real life.

"Damn it, I'm gonna need to hide my weapons as something else. But then it'll look like I'm throwing my swords. Maybe if I disguised them as small throwing knives, I'm pretty sure this game has tiny knives." He whispered to Maka behind Kirito's back as Kirito was tracking the Nepent.

When they reached the Nepent, this one was different than the last. Instead of nothing at the top of its plant body, there was a red fruit. Kirito stopped the group behind a bunch of bushes before they went any farther.

"This Nepent is a different kind. It's slightly weaker, but the fruit on the top is a-"

"YAHOO! A WEAK POINT NO DOUBT!"

The group didn't need three guesses as to which one of them just charged in to battle with his sword out. Only one was obvious.

"BlackStar!" Tsubaki yelled after him, "Not alone! Wait!"

But it was too late. BlackStar sunk his blade to the hilt in the fruit of the Nepent. Kirito sighed and rushed in after him, drawing his own sword, jumping and jabbing his sword into the Nepent's back.

Kirito let gravity work for him and he slid down the Nepent's back, gouging out a line of code, and as he touched the ground, the Nepent vanished.

From where he hung by his sword, BlackStar fell as the monster dissolved.

"Whoah!" he called out through his free fall down. Letting out a solid "oof" as he hit the ground.

Kirito helped BlackStar off the ground. "I wasn't going to say weakness. More along the lines of 'trap'. Smell the air, do you detect the faint scent of something bitter? That smell came from the fruit, it attracts other Nepents to where we are. The smell will hang with us, and those Nepents aren't going to stop."

The entire group glared at BlackStar.

And then a thud filled the air, and another, the number of thuds increased as Kirito tilted his head to listen.

"Eleven of them." He said, "we need to run. Maybe we can outdistance their agro, or find a place to hide until the smell wears off."

Kirito didn't have to say anything more, they were already sprinting away. Kirito started to run after them, "well at least they aren't totally stupid." Kirito mumbled under his breath as he tried to catch up. Then he remembered BlackStar's exploits in the last minute and rectified that previous thought. " _Most,_ aren't stupid." He said as he caught up and they ran from the horde of Nepents.


	11. Escape

They ran hard, harder than any of them had ever run before, in the game or out. In fact, Kirito's top speed stat leveled up twice by the running, giving him a massive speed boost. Kirito had already leveled up his speed many times, a staple for solo players, but the others weren't so lucky in their own stats. By the time they all slowed down, the entire bunch of DWMA students were wheezing and holding stitches in their sides.

"Ya... hoo..." BlackStar managed out, "Are we there yet?" He fell backwards and lay down, breathing very heavily. Behind them, the thumping of the Nepent's running was still there, getting steadily closer. Kirito cocked his head to hear this over the heavy breathing coming from the ground in front of him.

"Sorry, BlackStar. We're not out of the woods just yet, literally." He told the DWMA students. "If we can make it out of the forest, the agro of the Nepents will dissipate and we can make it back to town."

Kid was the first to fully catch his breath, "Hey, Kirito, can't we turn around and fight? You take out the Nepents easily, we can do our best to give you an assist on that."

"Yeah," Soul said while unsheathing his rusty starter blade, "We can't outrun them, we have to fight." The booms of Nepent steps got closer. BlackStar got to his knees, "I'm with Soul on this one, we can take 'em" BlackStar tried to pull off a cocky grin, but only succeeded in opening his mouth and panting like a tired puppy.

Kirito frowned.

"Have you guys spent any time really fighting and leveling up? Even just leveling up your skills and abilities?"

Kid remembered the past week they'd been in the game, mostly trying desperately to get their soul powers put into the game. That wouldn't help them out right now. He sighed, "No. We've been doing other things in the past week, it's been shocking to us. We couldn't believe that Kayaba would do this to anyone."

"Good point." Kirito pulled out his own blade, "Well here's our options. One, we can continue running for the exit of the forest, if we continue the pace then it should be ten minutes in that direction." He pointed forwards. "Two, we can find a spot to lay down a trap or just make a stand where we are. It should be your choice with what will happen, as I'll do my best to save all of you no matter the choice."

"Who said we needed saving?" BlackStar's mouth said before his mind caught up right behind it.

"The Nepents chasing you right now. Or how about yourself; when you decided that not listening to the guy who had been fighting Nepents for days now and was about to tell you something important wasn't worth listening to."

BlackStar's mouth shut with a clack, a self-conscious look spreading on his face.

"So what's your choice? Run or fight?"

"Can we have a little bit of time to choose?" Kid asked Kirito.

"Only a minute, unless you want one of those options to disappear when the Nepents catch up to us."

Kid nodded, "Thanks." He motioned for his friends to huddle up around him, and disgust crossed his face as the circle they made was completely horrible, but then he swallowed his disgust to speak. "What would you guys be thinking?"

Soul was the first to input his two cents, "Do you think that we could get away? Ten minutes is a long time to be running, and if they catch up to us while we're running then we'd be tired. I say that we need to find a place to fight, our own terms for where we can fight. If we could find a cliff or something where we could get the drop on the Nepents, all the better."

Maka retorted about how they'd have a high chance of injury or death from that plan, and then the discussion turned into a fully fledged argument. Most people taking sides on what they should do. Kirito merely took watch while he listened to the argument, he was confident that he would live either way, but the group's lives were a whole other matter. It would be their choice on what they think is the best.

In a minute Kid had the group under control once again, the argument fading to BlackStar telling everyone how he could kill God and he could kill a Nepent. The group looked to Kid, who walked over to Kirito.

"We're going to run... but if those Nepents get any close to us, we need to find a spot to fight. Maybe if we get the high ground, we could surprise the Nepents and take a few out before a pitched battle."

Kirito shot down that idea quicker than Excalibur could annoy anybody, "Yeah, there's no surprising Nepents, especially after you set off the trap. The smell seeping from the fruit had soaked into your clothing, they could track you no matter if you're hidden. But running first would be a good idea, especially now that we're rested up. Let's go."

They took off in the direction Kirito had said was the quickest way out of the forest. Nepent's foot steps close behind them.

It only took a few minutes before the Nepents seemed to be catching up, Kid ran to the front of the group and told Kid that the thuds were getting rather close. A little too close for comfort, and that maybe they should find a place to fight.

"Are you sure that you want to fight, we have only half a mile left, we can make it."

Kid thought twice. "Let's keep going for now. Second we see even the slightest petal of a Nepent, we fight. Don't underestimate us, Kirito, we've been in plenty of fights in real life." Kirito looked at him, not breaking his pace for a second.

"You fight in real life?"

"Yeah, kind of our jobs. We'll tell you about it once we're out of this."

And so they ran.

Minutes passed without seeing any part of a Nepent, maybe Kirito was right. At the end of the path they followed, a pinprick of light appeared, growing a little bigger every couple feet. Maka's confidence grew, "We're going to make it!" and she was almost right. When they were a hundred feet away from the end, two Nepents rushed in front of the group, blocking their path.

Kirito slid on the dirt, slashing at both Nepents and knocking them over. "GO!" He yelled, "I've got you!" Kirito's blade flashed in the sunlight as he raised it to a ready position, the others passing by him. The two Nepents tried to get up and Kirito finished them off, plunging his blade into their backs. Several more showed up behind him and Kirito ran after the DWMA group, holding the Nepents back by fear of steel.

The way out of the forest was right in front of them, a shining tunnel of light leading to the outside world and away from the Nepents.

"Kirito!" Kid called out, "We're almost there, come on!" But Kirito didn't hear him, instead continuing to watch the Nepents. "C'mon, Kirito! Let's go!" Kirito finally turned around and saw that they were almost out, then sheathed his blade and sprinted. Out of the trees to Kid's side, another Nepent appeared. Kid looked to see the shadow over him, then dived away before the Nepent attacked him.

"Holy crap! Patty, Liz!" Patty and Liz flew into his hands in their gun forms and Kid opened fire on the Nepent. The blasts didn't do anything but drop its health by a small fraction, and Kid knew that it may be time. He looked to see Kirito still with his eyes on the other Nepents while he ran and Kid accessed the energy stored in his soul. Liz and Patty grew heavier in his hands, becoming larger, more threatening, more firepower to be unleashed.

"We're at 1.3% resonance, Kid." Patty told him, "ready to go."

"Death Cannon."

An explosion flew from the ends of Liz and Patty, flying right into the Nepent and going straight through it. A smoking hole was all that remained of where the blast hit the Nepent. It's HP fell, plummeting past the halfway point and settling right around the zero mark. The Nepent dissolved.

Liz and Patty both returned to human form before Kirito could look at what happened and ran for the exit, Kid close behind. Kirito followed them outside, still watching the Nepents for no sudden moves until their agro ran out and they left the group alone. The whole group collapsed on a grassy ridge, completely exhausted from their running. Kirito watched them carefully, getting right to the chase.

"So... you said it's your job to fight?"

Kid looked over his shoulder, "Yeah... ever heard of the DWMA?"

"The DWMA? Who hasn't... wait, don't tell me, you're part of the DWMA?"

"Yeah."

The surprised look on Kirito's face didn't suit him. "But then that means that... can you use your soul powers in here?"

Kid looked to his companions, Soul frowned and shook his head, why risk it.

"No, we can't do anything like that, we're as normal as ever in here."

"Huh, well let's head back to the town, there's some things I need to teach you. Otherwise I doubt you'll last the week."


	12. lessons

"First lesson," Kirito told the DWMA students as they walked back into town, "In any RPG ever, the first thing you should do is get rid of your starting weapon in favor of something better. Starting weapons will always be the worst in a game, you need to instantly go for an improvement, even if it's something slightly minor." BlackStar looked at his own sword self-consciously, no wonder it hardly did anything to the Nepent. BlackStar checked the stats of the sword, and sure as Kirito said, each of the stats were at the lowest level, lousy.

"Do you have any Col?" Kirito asked, using the in-game money's name. The DWMA group each spouted off their amounts and Maka did the math in her head.

"Four hundred and twenty from monster drops." Maka told him, "How much would we need to buy better swords?"

Kirito thought for a moment, "Depends on the quality of the sword and where you buy it from." He told them, "Follow me, I'll show you to a good sword shop. They have some reasonably priced swords for the quality they give out." He led them across the town to a shop called 'More Blade For Your Buck'. An NPC shopkeeper greeted them as they walked in.

"Hi there, how can I be of assistance?"

Without waiting for any response from the players, he went back to his idle animation. He sat over a sharpening stone with a long, curved, cavalry sword. Sparks flew from his work.

Soul wandered his way over to a rack of carbon copy swords, there was no difference between any of them, it was like they were made in a factory. He picked one up and inspected it. The shopkeeper's voice rang out over the sharpening steel, "That sword is forty Col." Soul looked to the shopkeeper, who hadn't even looked up from his task.

As Soul watched him, the shopkeeper spouted off another price, this time for a sword Maka was looking at. "That sword is twenty-five Col, it is on sale until tomorrow." He didn't look up, he just spoke like he was watching all of them.

Kirito went off on his own to go look at the more expensive swords in the back areas near the shopkeeper while the DWMA students picked their way through the cheaper things. Each blade felt like it had its own personality to Soul. A thick, heavy sword felt to Soul like this blade loved crushing through his enemy's armor to eviscerate the innards. A small, thin blade felt as if it was designed for easy assassination, slipping the thin blade through somebody's ribs. Each sword was designed for different purposes, and their stats reflected that as Soul explored the selection.

"Hey, Tsubaki, how about this one?" BlackStar yelled out from the front, holding a sword twice his height and weight. As Tsubaki opened her mouth to say something, BlackStar felt the sword tip backwards and struggled to keep it up. He failed miserably, falling off balance by the sheer mass of the sword and crashing backwards into other racks of swords. As each sword crashed to the ground and left its holding rack, the shopkeeper spouted off the price for every blade.

When the pandemonium had ended, the shopkeeper asked if they wanted all of the swords, then told them that their purchase would be forty thousand Col for all the swords.

Tsubaki sheepishly cleaned up BlackStar's mess.

Kid scoffed as he looked at the swords, "None of these are perfect enough. Each has their own flaws in some way, that isn't for me." He kept looking, though, and something caught his eye. It was a small scabbard belt, and in the belt was a small sword, half the length of normal blades, but also half the weight. It gleamed pleasantly and Kid examined it, perfect symmetry. Kid picked it up and buckled it on, drinking in the feeling of having perfect symmetry once again.

"The price for that sword is seventy Col."

Kid picked out his money from the monster drops and paid for his swords, dropping his old sword in a 'return' box filled with broken junk.

The others also found suitable swords for their purposes. For Soul: a curved sword ending with a flared triangular tip. Liz and Patty both picked out matching shortswords which gleamed blue in the lighting. Maka chose a sword similar to Soul's, but double edged. Crona, his classic straight claymore fit his style. And Tsubaki and BlackStar both picked out small knives designed to rip a person to shreds in short distances, befitting of their speed as assassins.

Kirito looked at the motley bunch of fighters and nodded, in his mind he could tell that their blades represented something about their character. The flair of Soul's blade, knives of assassination, matching shortswords, and dirk.

"Next lesson."

He led them outside of the shop and the shopkeeper bid them a safe day, they made their way over to the market, feeling their new weapons bounce against their backs and hips in leather sheaths. The market was bustling with other players, talking or buying items for their fights. As the group watched, an argument broke out among two players over who got the last healing item in a certain stand. The two players were practically ready to stab each other by the time their friends broke them apart. One of the players committed a rather rude gesture in the other player's direction as he left, and then a screen opened up in front of him.

The player touched the screen to confirm something, and words appeared above the two.

A duel.

The two players both pulled out weapons, one with their starter sword and the other with a fencing rapier. The two battled it out, countering and crossing steel until the player with the starting sword extended his arm too far and the blade was knocked out of his grasp from a fancy jab to the wrist. The duel ended, the guy with the rapier striding away proudly and the other nursing his wounds with the healing item that they were originally fighting over.

"A little tip," Kirito added, "Duels aren't worth it. People can die in duels. The real enemy is Kayaba, not each other, I don't believe duels should be the solution unless every other alternative has been discussed."

He took them over to a stand run by a woman with green hair and a short skirt. She waved as they came up and Soul realized that she was a player, not NPC. Kirito talked with her for a bit, then handed her a few Col and addressed the DWMA group.

"Sabri here is giving us a deal. You can buy a few low level healing crystals for cheap." Kirito pocketed the crystals she just gave him in return for his money. "She owes me for getting her out of a sticky situation with a dungeon."

"Hey," Sabri broke in, "I had those mobs, you didn't have to interrupt. So," She spoke to the others, "How many crystals?"

Kirito answered for her, "Two per person. Each crystal is going to be fifteen Col, so you guys still have a little bit left over for anything else. The lesson is: always keep items that can heal people on you. You never know when you're going to need them."

Maka handed Sabri her money, then distributed the crystals. Each green crystal reflected the light as she handed them out, shining on their faces. "Thank you," Maka told Sabri, "I appreciate this."

"No problem!" Sabri told her cheerfully. She waved as Kirito took them to an inn.

"And the final lesson," He said, "Don't ever think that sleeping on the streets is a good idea, even though we're in a video game doesn't mean that we should eat or sleep like we're eternally homeless. Rent an inn room for a night and sleep well, or save the Col you rented it with and buy a house or something, do what you will." Kirito started walking away.

"Where are you going?" Kid called out.

"Well, I need to go and power grind against those Nepents again, I've spent too much time here with you guys for today. Don't die, I'd hate to see my advice not help."

Kirito kept walking.

Maka looked at the others, "We have fifty six Col left, what do you want to do?"

The answers were tumultuous, each person spouting off what they thought the group should do. These ranged all the way from Liz's "Rent a room at the inn," to BlackStar's "Follow Kirito and level up some more, we need to get stronger, YAHOO!"

Maka rubbed her ears, trying to get the ringing out of them, then interrupted everything. "Don't you think that we should just try out our weapons first? I saw a few straw dummies back in town that we could practice on, why not go there?" Nobody had any better ideas, so off they went to test out their weapons. They trained for hours on end, sweat falling from their brows as steel flashed through straw. Thankfully, the dummies automatically regenerated themselves, so they never ran out of things to hit.

Then something strange happened. Kid's dirk glowed green as he slashed, and the sword flashed amazingly fast through the air, creating a green aura behind it. The blade cut through the dummy as if it were melting butter. His blade cut through as if nothing was there and Kid found himself flung off balance.

"What the hell." He said, looking at the sword. "What was that?"

"I don't know, we didn't read the manual or anything before jumping in." Soul told him, "But I heard somebody mention sword skills on the first day, maybe that was one?"

"I don't know... but now we know what we should practice."


	13. Beyond the Forest

That night Kirito rented a room at the inn he recommended to those DWMA student players he met yesterday, he slept well on the extra four levels he gained from power grinding the day before. As the sun was rising the next day, Kirito buckled on his belt and went down to the lobby, passing the group of DWMA student players he'd met and waving. The day was cool in the marketplace and the player merchants were already out with what limited selection they had.

"Hey, Sabri." Kirito called out, walking up to the girl.

"Hey, Kirito." She was setting up her supplies on a table, but stopped as Kirito approached her. He looked at a few crystals before talking.

"I'm thinking of heading past the mountain areas I saw to the north a few days ago. From what I had seen on scouting it: there were a couple of ruins with high level monsters and I think I'm high enough level to make it through there. There may even be some uncommon loot. So I'm going to need a few teleport crystals and healing crystals, got any for my level?"

She shook her head and looked at her stock, "Sorry, Kirito, nobody's advanced as far as you yet... and that means that I can't get any better crystals than what the current areas can rustle up. I can give you more lower level crystals for a lower price, but at this rate you'd need a lot more to recover to full health. Maybe you can find some NPC shops in some mountain villages that sell crystals?"

"Can't risk it, just let me take a few and I'll be careful not to get hit."

Kirito pocketed the few crystals he bought from Sabri as he left the town. Monsters did attack him, but they were no problem to the guy who's primary goal had been leveling up for the past few days. Each fell with one hit from Kirito's anneal blade, which he had earned in a rather difficult quest involving Nepents a couple of days ago when he was power grinding against the Nepents with another beta tester... sadly, the other beta tester triggered the exact same trap fruit BlackStar did and didn't make it out of the forest with Kirito.

He sighed as he waded through the monsters, remembering the beta who'd died before his eyes. The poor guy, he thought he could hide from the Nepents, but the smell gave him away. That's how his life ended, digesting in the stomach of a plant.

A Nepent tried to approach Kirito, but a single slash ended it before it could even get close to hitting him. Kirito merely walked on, dismissing the loot gains like they were nothing. He walked through the forest, eliminating monsters as he went, until he reached the edge of the forest where no other player had gone past just yet save for him. There were mountain ranges past this, pockmarked by ruins and caves along their sides. Kirito could see some large monsters wandering around the ruins and caves, waiting for players to enter their agro.

A valley was the entrance to this area of the first floor, and trails were seen crisscrossing their way down this valley and up the opposite side. At the bottom, a river roared through the valley to carry into a pond. Kirito followed a trail down that didn't have many monsters, this was the one he'd decided to use when he'd scouted out the place before. The monsters on this path weren't anything that Kirito couldn't handle without losing much HP, relatively easy. They definitely looked threatening though, dire wolves that appeared to be much bigger and stronger than their lower level counterparts, Nepents that had twice as many teeth, and boars. The boars weren't that bad.

All while he went down, Kirito made sure to carefully map out the area for other players who may need it after him.

He made his way across the river and into the other side of the valley, getting into the mountain ranges for the first time. He always kept one healing crystal or teleport crystal in his pockets though, just in case of a mid-level boss, but none came into contact with Kirito. The paths winded around the mountains, some leading into the caves and ruins while the rest just cut directly past the mountains to continue onwards. Kirito assumed that if he followed those paths he'd run into some sort of village on the opposite side of the mountain range, but that wasn't his goal.

Despite what he told Sabri, he'd seen one high level monster that he'd seen once before in the beta that held something better than uncommon loot. The monster drops rare minerals that could be sold at NPC shops for massive amounts of Col.

"Now where are you." Kirito whispered.

"Where's what?" A voice said from behind him. Kirito turned, and standing there was a tall man toting around a one handed great sword like it was a toy. While Kirito watched the man, he raised the blade to point it at Kirito.

"It's polite to answer somebody when they talk to you." He growled, "What are you looking for."

Kirito put his hands on the top of his head, inches away from his sword in case that was necessary. "Just a monster I wanted to beat."

"Why do you want to kill it?"

The man's eyes drifted to Kirito's right, and Kirito followed them. Too late he realized his mistake and he tried to roll to the right, but another man's arms wrapped around him. The second man gripped Kirito tightly and held him from reaching his sword or items.

"I said, why do you want to kill it?" The sword continued to be pointed at Kirito, the tip of the blade slightly moving, almost making mesmerizing circles. Kirito let his head turn to the sides quickly, seeing that there was nobody except for the one man holding him and the other holding the sword. He was punished for that, the man holding him wrenched his head back to the front violently.

"The monster drops rare minerals that can be sold for around a thousand Col each." Kirito decided that it was necessary to tell them. "There's only a few of those monsters that spawn every day, so the minerals are only worth it early on unless you want to battle it out with around two hundred players on who gets the minerals."

The man with the sword grinned, "Hear that, Jace? That's quick money. Thanks, kid." He spit out the last word like it was some sort of bitter insult that he could taste in his mouth.

"I wouldn't suggest that you fight." Kirito told him as the other man let him go. Kirito sunk to the ground in a half crouch as the man with the sword out scoffed.

"We're a two man group here... odds are that you aren't as strong as us as there's two of us and one of you. If you think you could fight that thing, then we could definitely take it down."

The other guy wasn't so sure, "Hey, Wes, remember when we saw this guy... completely wiping the floor with every monster near the town? Odds are he's a lot higher level than us." He added in a whisper, "You told me that he'd have something, that's why we followed him, but if he's this good and he thinks we shouldn't fight the monster?"

"We... Are... Fine." The man with the sword, Wes, growled. "You and I have been leveling up since Kayaba told everyone that he was a sadistic freak. You and I are both level seven, we can take it."

"I wasn't talking about the monster." Kirito finally said, having listened to them enough. "I was talking about myself." Kirito dove out of the way, this time succeeding in getting away from Jace. It seemed to Jace and Wes that Kirito's sword leapt out of its sheath into his hands of its own accord. When Kirito stood up, the blade's handle was in his hand and he spun it cautiously to get his wrist warmed up.

"Huh?" Wes said with a smirk, "You? I wouldn't think that a kid like you could take on somebody like us... what level are you anyway."

A smile crossed Kirito's face, "Take both of your levels, and add them together."

Wes's smirk vanished. "Four... Fourteen?"

"Close to fifteen, odds are that's where I'll be once I beat that boss."

Jace had already run away, making his way back down the paths to the river and running up the opposite side. Wes watched him go, then looked at his own sword self-consciously. He took one swipe at Kirito, who blocked it with almost contempt, then ran after him. Kirito sheathed his blade, confident that they wouldn't bother him.

 _There's already some malevolent groups here?_ He thought, _We're all going to be more careful then. Nobody can afford running into people who don't care if you live or die._

Kirito continued on to the monster's cave he'd seen when scouting out the area. It was higher up on the mountain, not too high that it went into the low clouds, but high enough that it would dissuade players from attempting to find it. He walked in, sword not drawn just yet, but a torch in hand. The torchlight cast shadows on the walls, causing Kirito's nerves to be on guard as the monster could be anywhere. The cave's halls continued winding deeper into the mountain, finally coming into a torch-lit room filled with nests of sort.

Two of the monsters Kirito was looking for was there.

Gem Primates.

A/N: Hi, I just wanted to say that if you have any suggestions or comments please don't be afraid to write them down in the comments section. I actually enjoy hearing criticism so that I can get better and give you guys the chapters you want, so please comment on how you feel the story is going. If you like my writing then please check out some of my other stories, I've written about Splatoon, Harry Potter, Super Smash Brothers, and a few others (Including a game theory spin off for Harry Potter called Book Theory, the first chapter discusses four magical things that might exist in real life). And as always: Have A Great Day.


	14. Gem Primates

Gem Primates.

They looked exactly like apes would, only they were made entirely out of a form of see-through emerald... and were around three times larger than Kirito. He only came up to their thighs.

Thankfully their bulk made it hard for them to move around in the beta.

Kirito saw them first, and before the two apes turned around to see what made the footsteps, he had vanished. Kirito hid behind an outcropping on the wall. From there he was able to examine the Gem Primates individually.

Both were at least fifteen feet tall, with a thick build and crystal muscularity. Their skin was semi-transparent, so he could see some layers below the skin and it's green translucence. No hair was on their bodies, yet the emerald's coloring changed depending on which area of the body so as to create the illusion of a covering hair. Kirito remembered from the beta test that the apes spawned in families of three, with one larger male and two smaller females, but these two were all alone.

 _I'm going to have to act fast,_ he thought, _otherwise their companion may arrive. No Gem Primate is found without two others close by, unless you had already taken them out. These two's companion must be deeper in the cave. Or, the more likely, it's on guard at the entrance. But that would mean that I just..._

Out of nowhere came a whooshing noise from behind Kirito. Kirito heard the wind whistling and turned to see a muscular, green arm crash into his chest. The air rushed out of his lungs and Kirito felt his body rise into the air and come crashing down, hard, ten feet deeper into the cave. And in front of the other two Gem Primates.

The hit felt less like a punch and more like a three hundred pound battering ram had just crashed through Kirito's rib cage. His entire body screamed at him as he tried to get up, but Kirito slowly pushed himself up off of the ground and grabbed his sword. A quick check on his health bar told him that the HP was cut by half from that powerful strike. So he snatched at and broke a healing crystal from his pocket on the way up. The health bar returned itself to 80% capacity.

Kirito got a good look at the thing that hit him, another Gem Primate, this one larger than the other two. It must be the male. It flexed its arm and dropped lower, challenging Kirito. Kirito clamped down on another crystal as the beast lumbered forward towards him, back to full health.

Behind his back, he heard the other two Gem Primates that he'd been watching earlier get up and stay around him to make sure he couldn't run away.

"One on one, eh?" Kirito told the Gem Primates, though he knew that they wouldn't understand, "Just the way I like it."

He held his Anneal blade out, pointing it threateningly at the ape. The green ape kept walking forward, unfazed by the steel now pointed at it's face.

The three apes' health bars appeared above their heads.

"Your loot is mine." Kirito growled, then launched himself at the first ape with a battle cry, the sword thrust out in front of him ready to pierce the skin of a crystal ape.

But the ape was faster than Kirito expected it to be from the beta, and it twisted its body at the last second to send the sword hit careening off to the side, deflecting the blade with armor-like skin. Kirito, expecting resistance in the form of an impaled monkey, stumbled forwards.

His momentum carried him into the arms of the ape, who wrapped them around Kirito and threw him into a wall.

Health dropped to 60%. These apes hit hard.

Kirito picked himself up with his vision swimming in his head, the room spinning like it was on a top. He grabbed at another crystal in his pocket and broke it. His health jumped back up to a solid 90%, but he felt he was using crystals all too much. Thankfully, with the crystal's power, the dizziness went away as well, giving Kirito the clarity he needed to keep fighting.

His grip on the Anneal blade hadn't lessened, so he readied himself once again.

 _So Kayaba gave you a few buffs since the beta. You won't last long enough anyway, I know how you fight now. I underestimated you, that won't happen again._

His sword came up to point once again at the ape. However, this time, Kirito didn't lunge, instead keeping careful distance while circling around his opponent like he would do another human. The Gem Primate roared in frustration as his prey didn't come straight into the fight, but instead kept the sword between the two of them. The rage grew in the ape.

Then the primate made the first move. It drove forward off its powerful hind legs, its fist pointed at Kirito's chest as it charged. The ape was faster than Kirito had ever seen a monster before, easily now the rank of a mid-level boss.

But Kirito ducked under the strike at the last second, bobbing as a boxer would, and drove his sword upwards. The point drove into the ape's neck.

For a second the gem skin held like armor, but cracks spread quickly and the sword thrust up into the ape's throat to end it's life.

Kirito pulled the blade out and let the beast fall and dissolve into code. He then turned his attention to the other two Gem Primates, the females. They stared at where Kirito had killed their alpha male, as if they wouldn't believe he was gone, then looked at Kirito with murder in their eyes. Angry fire in the green irises.

In order to continue going with fresh health, Kirito activated a smaller healing item that he'd picked up a long time ago from the town of beginnings. This healed him up ten percent. He checked on the crystal supply.

Something was wrong.

There was only a single crystal left in his pocket.

Kirito looked to where he had crashed into the wall, but no crystal remains were there. Nothing.

 _Where could they have gone?_ He thought frantically, keeping an eye on the ever advancing Gem Primates. _I had at least five more from the few I used. Unless,_ and realization hit him harder than the Primate's fist, _the two players from before. The one's who grabbed me must have picked my pockets while I was distracted._

Kirito could imagine the two thieves walking back through the forest with his crystals; his life-giving, life-saving crystals, jingling merrily in their pockets. No doubt they realized that by taking those crystals they'd doomed Kirito.

He removed his last crystal and held it in his hand, keeping it safe so that nothing happened to it. The Anneal Blade started glowing blue and the apes stopped, but only for a moment as they realized the blue light was no threat.

They were wrong.

Kirito threw himself into the middle of them and cut at their legs in a long sweeping blow, one dodged back in time to avoid the strike while the other fell with cuts. He raised himself up to deliver the finishing blow to the downed ape.

The ape who dodged rushed in and forced Kirito to jump away, over the downed ape's body, before he was able to strike.

The ape on the ground grabbed at his ankle and forced him to trip to the ground, his palms hit the ground and the Anneal blade clattered away. Kirito tried to grasp at it, but it fell out of reach.

He kicked out and felt his boot connect with something hard and the pressure around his ankle lessened. He scrabbled away to grab his only defense: the sword.

Another whooshing sound behind him, but Kirito was prepared. He turned with his sword in a guard position and blocked the strike on the flat of the blade. The blade bent under the blow, cracking back in his hands, but didn't break. A large crack, however grew in the middle of the hilt.

Kirito pushed off the punch and slashed under the ape's guard, feeling the cut drive under the skin to deliver punishment to the ape's emerald ribcage.

The first ape fell into code.

Kirito stood himself up, and walked over to the ape who was downed. It tried to scrabble away on it's uninjured upper body, but uselessly. It made it five feet away before a slightly blued steel struck downwards into it, ending its life.

A screen appeared in front of Kirito, showing him the loot gains. He found five of the rare minerals: Emerald Remains, from the fight, easily enough to recompense him for the crystals he got and the crystals that were stolen, along with repairing his cracked sword.

He held up the sword to inspect, and what he saw surprised him. There was a long crack down the middle of the blade, running jaggedly down the steel to the hilt and continuing downwards past the crossguard and to the handle. The handle was covered in soft leather, and Kirito removed the leather to view the damage's extent. The crack stopped under his small finger.

The blade was utterly useless until he could get it repaired.

Kirito shrugged, then set up his inventory to take back the Anneal blade and instead took out his starter sword, the one he'd had before his Anneal blade. It was rusty and weak, but it would do for now. The first task Kirito had was to find a repair shop and get his sword fixed.

He left the cave and walked back across the valley to the forest. The trees were beautiful, catching the sun to create fallen shade over flowers. Only some flowers were Nepents. Then they were dead Nepents.

He kept walking until leaving the forest, leaving a wake of dead monsters. And out on the plains before the town there were two shadows in the setting sun.

Wes and Jace.

They chuckled merrily while walking back on their own to the town themselves, not noticing Kirito behind them. They did notice, however, when Kirito socked Jace in the back of his head.

Jace's head shot forward like out of a cannon, and his face hit the dirt. Wes jumped back in surprise and drew a small dagger that looked funny in his big hands.

"What the!" Jace said through a mouthful of dirt. "What was that?! Wes? Wes?"

Wes remained silent, Kirito had his sword up and at Wes' throat.

"Now, Jace. I think that you are required to give me an apology."

Jace looked up from his dirt sandwich. "YOU!" He yelled out, "You should've been dead. We took... er.. your, crystals." He realized his vocal mistake far too late and Kirito's sword swung from Wes's neck to Jace's nose. Jace even went cross-eyed trying to keep an eye on Kirito's blade.

"I'm sorry, that wasn't an apology." Kirito noticed Wes move slightly forward and he held up a hand to motion for him to stop. "That's far enough, Wes. One more step and Jace here gets a little tickling from my rusty sword."

Wes stopped immediately, holding up his hands and dropping the dagger. A quick and silent exchange took place between the looks of Wes and Jace until Jace sighed.

"Fine. Here you go. Now leave me alone, I'm not bothering you again." Jace grabbed a sack at his side and tossed it at Kirito's feet. Healing crystals spilled out. Before Jace's eyes, Kirito's sword glowed green and he raised it in the air. Jace closed his eyes and prepared for the inevitable.

The sword fell.

Into the dirt in front of Jace's face.

Jace looked up to realize he was alive. Kirito stared down in disgust.

"You almost cost me my life. You're lucky I'm not killing you, I don't believe in murder. Especially when our enemy is Kayaba, not each other. Now get lost."

Jace and Wes took Kirito up on that offer, running away from him and back into the forest. Kirito walked over to where Wes had been and picked up the knife he had left.

"Too light." He said, "No strength in the blows." and he tossed the knife back down in disgust. "Worthless."

He just couldn't wait until the blacksmith repaired his Anneal Blade.


	15. An army

"Kyeaaah!" Maka's blade shone purple and it felt lighter than air and moved of nearly its own accord. A purple aura followed the sword as it cut arcs through the air. Straw exploded from the dummy she was testing the sword skill on and it fell over to land in a pile of its own straw-blood. Once it hit the ground it respawned right where it fell.

Maka wiped the sweat from her brow as she sheathed her sword.

It had been three weeks since the opening of Sword Art Online, and too many people had died already. Close calls abounded in this world and staying safe was an absolute priority for anybody who wanted to live. Many times, while the DWMA students were grinding materials or experience, they would be forced to run or use their soul powers when they run into some powerful monster. And still there was no definite progress towards the boss to get to floor two.

All down the training hall Maka was in, other people were hacking and slashing at their dummies. Maka walked off, going back to the inn room that her and her friends had rented a day ago when they came into town. Inside of there, Soul and Kid were arguing about their next route to a new town, Crona was talking with Ragnarok and Liz, BlackStar was sharpening his blade until it could cut a string draped over it, and Patty and Tsubaki were making lunch.

"Hi Maka," Tsubaki was the first to notice when Maka walked in, "How was training?"

Maka grabbed an apple from the cabinet inventory; it materialized in her hand and she took a few bites, savoring the crisp flavor. "Training was good. But there's a lot more people here than we originally anticipated, so maybe we should get moving soon. Resources would already be stretched thin."

Soul looked up from the map that he and Kid were analyzing. "Already working on that, but Kid keeps insisting that this cave system is the better way to get to the next town. Caves are dangerous enough with their falling rocks and traps, but throw in a few high level monsters and you've got yourself a recipe for death."

"But it's the fastest route," Kid argued. He traced out the route, it cut straight through a mountain to reach the next town. "If we take the tunnel we save at least a day's worth of travelling. And," Kid got a glazed look in his eyes, "It cuts perfectly through the mountain. I couldn't think of a more exact way to get to our next destination."

Maka looked at the tunnel on the map.

"It is very straight, but if one monster that's too high of a level gets in our way, we'd need to run back. While it seems straight, it also looks way too narrow. Maybe four people wide? If we see golems on both sides, we're toast."

Kid pointed out the other path, a long winding road leading up and around the mountain. "That's my other point. I did some nosing about yesterday and apparently there's been a few high level monsters seen on the mountain path. They've wiped out several groups of people in the last day or two. Anybody trying to make it up the mountain."

It only took a few minutes after that to convince the others that the tunnel was the better way to go. They began packing to leave that same day, shopping for whatever health items they may need and repairing their weapons.

Soul agreed to go with Kid and help get the healing items as their weapons didn't need as much repair as the others, and as they were out Soul noticed somebody rushing through the streets. He was as ragged as you could get, with ripped clothing, no armor, no weapons, and data leaking from wounds in his body.

"Help!" He cried as he ran through the streets, "Please help me!"

Several players ran up to the guy, who couldn't have been any age over sixteen, as he collapsed on the ground. A crowd gathered around, but someone with an air of leadership was at the front of them all asking questions.

"Get a healing crystal!" The guy yelled out into the crowd of players, "He's bleeding out!"

Soul looked at the pile of healing items they bought and saw a healing crystal among them and rushed into the crowd. He pushed his way to the front and used the crystal on the dying teen. The guy's wounds healed up instantly and his HP went up by half. He collapsed to the ground as his pain was relieved, an evident sigh on his face.

The man with the leadership aura relaxed and gave Soul an appreciative nod, "Hey, what's your name?" He asked the guy who'd been wounded.

"Ravien, that's my name." The guy said while trying to struggle to his feet. The leader reached down and helped Ravien up.

"A good name, mine's Diavel. Now what happened to you?"

"Bunch of monsters headed this way. My friend and I were trying to get to the next town, Tolbana, when we were assaulted by them. They came around the bend, hundreds of the beasts. And they're coming this way to the town! My friend was struck down in front of my face and I held his body in my hands as he dissapeared. His death allowed me to run away and come here, and those beasts are coming this way!"

Tears streamed down Ravien's face and nose as he yelled at Diavel and anybody else in earshot. Those words dove in to Soul's mind, an army of monsters coming this way.

Normally monsters would wander around in small groups or solo, but to have hundreds of monsters in one place to go to a single area, that had to require programming to create. They would be smarter than normal, maybe even with AIs that could rival a human mind.

Diavel looked up from the crying Ravien and into the crowd of players.

"Everybody gather in front of the town hall in thirty minutes! Get any other player in this town to join up there!" And when nobody initially moved, "NOW GO!"

The last words sent the aura of leadership racing down everybody's spines, and they realized that Diavel was their leader for today. They ran off to get their friends or to go to the town hall if they were solo players. In twenty minutes a massive crowd lined the steps of the town hall. Diavel stood on top of the steps, looking over the crowd, and waited for the last ten minutes to do a head count of everybody there.

"Two hundred and sixty-seven players!" Diavel yelled to the crowd when he was done counting. "WE are on the front lines of this game, we are the ones to drive ahead."

He paused to let that sink in for a moment.

"We have received a warning from people who attempted to keep driving forwards to the next town that there is some sort of attacking force of monsters headed this way. No doubt this is a product of Akihiko Kayaba and his programming! Kayaba wants to kill us all off, play god with our lives and decide who lives and dies himself. But while he surrounds himself with programs and computers he forgot one thing: we are human! And we will fight back against his attempts at our lives!"

Cheers erupted from two hundred and sixty-seven throats, echoing off buildings to head up the mountain.

"We have two choices," Diavel continued when the cheer died down. "Run away and leave the town and anybody remaining here to the monsters, or stand and fight to protect the front lines! It is your choice if you wish to run away, but I will defend the progress we have made. I can organize a defense, so if you stay you will follow that plan. Your choice. Leave now and the monsters might not chase after you."

But nobody left. Diavel smiled.

"Good! So line up in your groups and guilds and I'll divide you into the defense groups!"

There was some shuffling as friends found friends and grouped up. When the movement stopped there was defined clusters of people. Soul and his friends watched Diavel from the front of the steps and saw he looked out and nodded. Diavel stepped down from the front and moved through the crowd swiftly, asking a question here and there but largely assigning jobs straight off. As each group got their jobs they rushed off to an area of the town.

The town itself wasn't very defendable, surrounded by a wooden wall and it had four entrances, one on each side. Only one path led to where Ravien had come from with his grim news, but Diavel set up guards at every entrance and a vanguard filled with reinforcements that could go anywhere.

When Diavel had walked up to Soul and his group, he asked them what levels they were at. And seemed to be genuinely surprised when he heard the answer.

"Really?" he asked, "That's higher than mostly everybody here. I'm going to place you at the front of the vanguard so that once the enemy shows its real attack you can back up that area. You'll stay here at the town hall. Make sure you keep plenty of healing items on you as there would be injured people at the front who don't want to die. We want to minimize casualties, and that seems like the best way to do it. Stave off any enemies, then heal up the injured people and fight on. I'm hoping that there'll only be a few casualties, but I know I'll be wrong. People die every day and every fight. Make sure that you save as many as you can, we're still only on the first floor."

And so they took their positions next to a small group who said that they were ex beta-testers.

And they waited.

The wait didn't feel all too long as Tsubaki started a conversation with one of the girl beta-testers and the minutes passed by with words. The beta-testers explained that the big pillar that the mountain path led to was the dungeon to the next floor and there had to be a town near it. Soul remembered the town Ravien mentioned: Tolbana. The beta-testers were just explaining their favorite sword skills when the sounds of clashing metal and screams of pain came from the entrance to the path leading to Tolbana.

Diavel was at the front of the vanguard assuming command and he jumped up from where he'd been sitting.

"Vanguard! Weapons!" He cried out, and steel slithered on leather.

A runner came from the front lines, stumbling over himself to get the words out. Diavel had placed the runners at the entrances as scouts designed to report when enemies were attacking.

"Diavel, we've got around two hundred monsters coming around the bend in the front entrance. They're all low enough levels for our people to handle, but a few higher level monsters were seen at the back."

A second runner came from the East wall, "Diavel, there's a small group of enemies coming from the East!"

But as everybody looked, there were no runners from the West or South. Diavel pointed to two groups, "You go to the West wall and report there. Return here if there's no fighting, but if there's fighting send one man back as a message runner. Get exact numbers. And you go to the South!"

The two groups ran off. Diavel looked to the front row of groups, which included the DWMA students. "Move to the front wall, don't engage until the enemy either thins out or gets momentum in the fight, GO!"

Soul, Maka, BlackStar, Crona, Kid, Liz, Patty, and Tsubaki ran with the other groups. Swords glinting in the sunlight as they moved in to attack. As they ran BlackStar lifted his head.

"YAHOOOOOO!"


	16. Pitched Battle

"Yahoooo!"

"BlackStar, shut it already! We need to hang back for just a little while longer. Then we hit the enemy once they're weakened, or we're slightly weakened, you heard Diavel." Kid told BlackStar while Liz and Patty held him back. The blue-haired ninja was more than ready to go, trying every other second to rush off into the fight.

"But I can't show my vast skills from back here! Let me go onto the stage and prove how worthless everyone else is; they are not God, merely a stepping stone for me, yet the fight out there is without my greatness!"

Kid sighed and looked out at the battle. It was hard to determine whether the players or monsters were winning. The players had been pushed back to the entrance gate, but it looked like nobody was really getting hit. Any monster that attempted to approach was instantly vaporized by multiple players at once. The monster's lines were thinning slightly and they only rushed in one monster increments, which made it easy for the players to eliminate monsters.

"Jut give it a minute, BlackStar." Soul growled from where he was croushed, naked weapon in his hand. "Look at the back, there's monster reinforcements. We're going to be needed in three... two...-"

And he was right, a fresh wave of monsters came charging for the gate. They crashed into the front lines and scattered players into several groups to fight for their lives. The players grouped up in small circles and desperately fought off the monsters in small, brutal skirmishes.

Liz and Patty let go of BlackStar and drew their swords. Soul stood up and stretched, "Let's do this."

Everybody else in the reinforcement squads, an easy fifty high level players, readied themselves. And they charged the monster lines.

Soul looked over to BlackStar as they ran, and saw a blood-lust filled smile on BlackStar's face. They stuck together as they hit the monster lines while the enemies were distracted with their player prey they'd surrounded. The two friends watched each other's backs, cutting down monster after monster and healing any injured players they found.

Soul's curved blade split monster skulls in two, cleaved through muscle and bone like it was melting butter, and drove through rib cages to pierce monster hearts. BlackStar was equally a terror. His speed was unmatched, though he relied on Soul to finish the monsters off if they survived the first onslaught of knife swings, and he'd fling himself into a fight to cut the monster sixteen different ways in a second and move on to the next monster before the first had dissipated.

As the two friends fought side by side, they caught glimpses of their other companions. Kid, Maka, and Tsubaki were cutting through the middle of the monster's lines with many other players, holding off further reinforcements. Liz and Patty were going around to destroy monsters who had surrounded players and check to make sure that the players were okay. And Crona had released Ragnarok in the chaos and was a human wrecking ball in the monsters. The monsters would even back off in fear of him, warily watching the mouth on the blade to see if it will yell it's scream of death.

The battle was going well for the players once the vanguard had joined up in the fight, but there was no end to the monsters.

Hours passed and the battles continued; new, fresh monsters that hadn't joined the fight would continue to flood in from the bend to the pass. Fatigue set in among the players, and more fell to the monster's attacks as time went on.

Another ugly monster fell down in front of Soul, and he finished it off and took a step back from the front lines to catch his breath. Another player took his place on the front lines. Soul watched the sun dip lower towards the mountaintops, if the fighting continued into the darkness, it would get very dangerous very quickly.

Soul watched as the player that took his place swung his sword as a murderous arc, and decided that he should look to see if his friends were still there. They were scattered across the lines as the monsters kept the pressure up.

"BlackStar, Tsubaki, Liz, Patty, Crona, but..." Soul said as he marked off his friends in his mind as he saw them fighting, "Where's Maka."

"SOUL!"

Maka's voice sounded out from farther down the lines. Soul looked to the player who took his spot, decided that he had it under control, and ran off towards Maka's voice.

It was thirty meters down the fighting lines where Maka was fighting some sort of a Minotaur. She screamed as she pushed the thing's axe blade off of her sword edge.

"SOUL!"

She had no time to look, the creature was already bearing down on her again. The players to her left and right put in little stabs, but the monster had multiple health bars and the tiny pokes did nothing to the HP. Soul ran up behind Maka and felt the power run through his veins as he activated a sword skill.

The blade of his sword glowed yellow, and he thrust it into the Minotaur and then jumped to drive the blade upwards. The sword bounced off of the Minotaur's skin, leaving Soul off balance, but letting Maka get a small break.

The Minotaur backed off and regrouped itself. Then it lifted its axe and snorted a challenge.

Soul stepped in front of Maka, holding his blade in front of her protectively. "Back off, ya glorified bacon strip." He growled, then addressed Maka behind him, "Are you okay? Did it get any solid hits on you?"

"No, I was able to dodge most of them. It's really slow, but has more than enough armor to compensate for that, I think it may be a boss. We might need to use the powers."

"Got it."

Maka joined Soul in facing the Minotaur, their swords held at the ready.

The Minotaur snorted its challenge again and jumped back into the fight, swinging its axe in a downwards arc in the middle of Soul and Maka. They jumped apart and slashed together at its legs. The Minotaur roared in pain and data poured out from the wounds.

It swung low at Soul, who was caught off guard and had his feet swept out from beneath him. The Minotaur was bearing down on him, then Maka was there with her own sword at the ready to catch the swing of the Minotaur's on her own swing. The two blades glanced off each other, but Maka recovered first with her lighter weapon and slammed the sword's flat into the Minotaur's horn.

The horn cracked and the monster roared and punched at her, but she ducked low and rolled. Soul had gotten up by now, and punished the punch with his sword's point going right into the monster's calves. The blade sunk in a half foot, hitting bone eventually, but doing plenty of damage to the monster. Soul backed up from the next wild swing, swaying out of the way, and let Maka get around it.

She jumped up on top of the monster and cut downwards on the head again, but the Minotaur must have heard her, because it turned and the hit glanced off of its horn. The Minotaur turned and swiped at Maka while she was in mid-air, landing the strike in her naval and sending her flying backwards.

"Maka!" Cried Soul, he got in the way of the Minotaur and blocked its path, "Get up!"

The monster swung another downward strike towards Soul, and Soul caught the underside of it with the flat of his blade. The weight of the axe was astonishing, it could crush Soul even if it wasn't being swung, but with adrenaline gushing through his veins, Soul held his ground. The Minotaur pushed down harder, and Soul felt his feet start to slide backwards towards Maka's body. He looked back and saw Maka looking at him with a desperate look in her eye. They'd hardly done anything to the HP of the monster. But she nodded, time to pull out the trump card.

Soul let the axe fall, flying backwards into Maka's hands as she stood up. She swung Soul around, testing the balance in the air, and decided it was good.

The Minotaur looked at the scythe, clueless at what it really was; Kid's disguises apparently had worked out well enough to fool the monsters. Then it looked at Maka like she was dead meat now that Soul was gone. It didn't know what it was getting into.

It charged at her, and she jumped over it with ease, sailing over the monster. She could feel Soul vibrate in her hand, eager to plunge into that monster's skin and spill its data-blood. She slid a few feet from the jump, but wasn't too far away from the Minotaur. The Minotaur turned with a swipe, but the slide took her out of its reach, and the swipe was merely through the empty air.

Maka slipped Soul's blade under the monster's guard, and he cut through the skin to drop the health by a little more than what their swords were doing. In his scythe form, Soul grinned, it was progress.

The player and monster were doing a dance of death, with the scythe and axe between them weaving steel flashes of light. Maka with her light agility, and the Minotaur with his massive vigor, could counter each other with each step. But only one beast was taking damage, the one who had the massive vigor to support the hits. Data poured out of a dozen small cuts in the Minotaur, while Maka escaped with only a single small scrape on her arm from where she'd tripped and the axe had grazed her. The Minotaur huffed, and tried to regain its breath, but Maka was still fresh as she started the fight now that her soul could be in unison with Soul's.

The Soul Sympathy was expanding their power, letting Soul cut deeper and faster, and letting Maka take as many hits as the monster could land. Maka could even see her health bar growing incrementally with the power boost that came from Soul Sympathy. Then an idea came to Maka. Surely, since Soul was disguised as a blade, he might be able to...

Soul glowed blue in Maka's hands. The power from Soul Sympathy not the only thing rushing through Maka's veins, she could feel the sword skill fly through her as well.

"Kyeah!" She cried, bearing down on the monster with movement she'd never seen before. Soul moved of almost his own volition, swinging back and forth in a massive combo. His shaft struck the Minotaur just as many times as the blade did, disrupting any attack the Minotaur may have thrown, and the blade scored hit after hit to dig into the beast's muscle and bone.

Maka could feel Soul's readiness to try it out in her mind, the finisher to this sword skill, a custom finisher.

"Soul Resonance!" Maka and Soul shouted together, melding soul and mind to form an energy around Soul's blade. The blade, glowing blue and white alternatively, splashed against the Minotaur's chest and broke the skin to hit ribs. The ribs held for a moment, but caved inwards under the force of the combined soul power and sword skill. Soul flew through the entirety of the Minotaur to tear it in half at the rib cage.

There was as single view of a still beating heart, now cut in half, then it vanished with the rest of the body. A congratulations sign appeared in front of Maka and Soul, Maka's suspicion was right: it was a mid-level boss.

The other monsters watched as their most powerful ally was destroyed in front of their eyes, and Kayaba's boss coding took place to destroy the boss' henchmen. Each monster exploded into code, leaving behind experience and money for any player who struck it.

The players themselves watched the monsters vanish, and a cheer broke out from the front lines. They'd won. They'd beaten the first challenge Kayaba threw at them. Diavel came to the front from where he'd been fighting and delivered a speech, but Maka and Soul couldn't hear, they were busy sneaking off to transform Soul back into his human form without anybody watching.

When they returned, Diavel was finishing up.

"And we can take it to Kayaba right on the top floor. WE CAN FINISH HIM!" Diavel smiled, Tolbana was close to the boss tower.

"To Tolbana!" And Diavel marched off to the next city, the way to it now clear. The players still alive, numbering two hundred even, followed. All DWMA students accounted for.


	17. Onwards and Upwards

Months passed from that point. Floors were completed and the front shrunk as more players left the front lines to settle down or because they'd died. The front lines of Aincrad were dangerous positions for any person, party, or guild. Yet most players risked their lives on the front to escape the game. With each floor completed, there was an ungodly amount of monsters waiting on the next floor for the players. Each floor was new and interesting, but their beauty hid how fatal they were.

Players died every day on the front, sacrificing themselves for their friends and the cause, yet Kirito survived.

Known as either the Black Swordsman or as a Beater, he was better known as the best of the solo players.

Kirito's sword slashed through the monster fish to let it dissolve, and he looked up at the area the boss party had dropped into. They had just come from floor twenty three, and a party of monsters was waiting for them to come out of the floor entrance, but the entrance area was at the top of a hill so he could see pretty far.

The twenty fourth floor was some sort of water based area. The entrance area was surrounded by water animals, most hostile, but the party that had eliminated the boss of the last floor quickly took them out. Kirito himself had eliminated two thirds of the monsters, acting as a whirlwind of steel to sweep through the monsters. Once the monsters had been destroyed the NPCs began spawning in.

Two NPCs appeared into the players, who were using health items. The NPCs made a welcoming gesture.

"Welcome to floor twenty four. And our city: Panareze."

Kirito's quick look told him three things about the town and its surrounding area: It was a watery floor, Panareze was in the middle of the floor, and there was a ton of islands all over the place. It would be a relatively simple floor to traverse, move from island to island over bridges, but monsters would be able to strike at any time from the close proximity to the water. Maybe there would be some rarer loot in the water, but it would be too hard to get for now: they'd need to grind for a bit.

The NPCs continued to talk, explaining what the floor was like and how "beautiful" it was. All bullcrap to Kirito. He didn't even bother listening to them, he just walked off in a random direction, keen to explore the city. The city was all one big island, connected to the other islands with floating bridges; he could see some islands that weren't connected, but maybe they had to swim out to them.

New, more powerful, items awaited him, but Kirito had forgone those for a new sword. It was an improvement to his old one by a considerable amount.

"If only I had this for the boss fight." Kirito mumbled under his breath as he paid. "Maybe he wouldn't have died in front of me."

The shopkeeper bid him a good day, but Kirito didn't even bother with the NPC, the players were better to talk to. There were some players who hung around NPCs, but they had gone... slightly crazy after losing their friends. Most even gave the NPCs their deceased friend's names. But all the other players didn't even consider the NPCs worth talking to, only players could provide human reactions. Not that Kirito had anybody to talk to, Klein was on a lower level right now leveling up some new member to his guild and there was really nobody else to talk to.

He stopped by a nice shop for lunch and ate a rather plain sandwich. The bread was too hard and the meat too dry, no good. As he ate, Kirito watched the other players arrive at the new floor. By now, the news of a new floor would've traveled down to the lower floors and hopeful players would be rushing up to this floor to try their luck at its opportunities.

Some of them would die to monster attacks on the cities.

"Hey, is this a good shop to eat at?"

Kirito looked to where the voice came from and saw Asuna there. They'd originally met on the first floor, but had met several times since then for boss meetings and other quests.

"Hi, Asuna." Kirito said, throwing down his sandwich in disgust and tossing a few Col onto the table to pay for a tip. "And no, this place isn't really that good, I'd suggest elsewhere."

Asuna looked a little bit downtrodden, "I just wanted a conversation. Maybe we could find somewhere else to eat?"

"Not hungry anymore. The sandwich ruined my appetite."

"Then let's go fight a few monsters, see what they're like."

Kirito shrugged and stood up to stretch, "Might as well. We didn't just kill a hundred monsters that were waiting for us to come up from the boss room." He started walking out towards the North bridge. Asuna jogged to keep up.

"Are you disappointed about the death?" She asked him. Kirito sighed, "Yes. I could've saved him, but I was a too slow. He even reached out for me to try and help him. Happy?"

"Sure."

A few of Asuna's guildmates called out from some nearby market, eagerly asking her to join them. She looked at Kirito, who was staring at the bridges with an unhappy look on his face, and left to go to her guildmates. They cheered and called out as she joined them, clearly more cheerful company than Kirito. Kirito stole a glance at Asuna, and kept walking towards the North bridge.

When he got there, there was already a group of people there. Some people he'd seen before on the front. The DWMA students.

They saw him as he walked up, and waved cheerfully. Kirito didn't remember them from the boss battle, they must've joined the groups migrating upwards after the front cleared the floor.

"Hey! Kirito! Come to bask in my glory?" BlackStar yelled out, "Or come to get your butt handed back to you in a duel?"

Kirito ignored BlackStar, opting to keep moving forwards with his thoughts.

"Get back here! I'm not done with you, yet!"

Kid sighed as he watched his friend's behavior. "Kirito," He said, "There's some quests up ahead that are about bridges. Apparently the bridges need to be cleared of monsters before we're able to cross them."

Kirito stopped, "You need help?"

"No. But it looks like you need something to do."

A grimace gripped Kirito's face, "Sure. Let's go then."

Kid nodded and led the way to the bridge. While they walked, BlackStar was pestering Kirito until Kirito finally unsheathed his sword and shoved it up BlackStar's left nostril. Liz applauded him for doing that, and Patty joined in when her sister started clapping, after months of being around BlackStar constantly, they'd finally gotten tired of him. Soul walked in relative silence, like Kirito, trying to go for a cool guy look, but failing miserably when he tripped and fell into the water.

They reached the bridge when both Soul and BlackStar were drying off, Kirito got so tired of BlackStar that he threw the ninja into the water. BlackStar screamed out a "yahoo!" the whole way into the drink, then ran right back onto dry land in case of monsters. Anything could lurk under the water. That move earned Kirito a hug from most of the students who had gotten tired of BlackStar's antics.

At the start of the bridge was a little NPC boy who watched them approach. When Kirito touched the quest icon the boy activated.

"I want to go get some apples, but the bridge is filled with monsters. Would you please help me?"

Kirito touched the 'accept quest' button and the boy ran into the middle of the bridge, screamed out "Help!", then ran right back to where he was with an expecting look to the players.

Monsters started jumping onto the bridge, dripping water from their limbs. Kirito and the others pulled out their swords and walked onto the bridge to eliminate the pests.

The monsters were incredibly easy, almost too easy. The bridge was cleared in minutes, with nearly no damage taken on the players. The NPC boy clapped and jumped happily, then crossed the bridge to wait at a bridge on the next island.

"There's monsters here too." He called out.

Kirito and Kid both looked to a nearby tree, which had apples hanging from it, and sighed. They walked over and took out another wave of monsters.

The waves of monsters kept coming, with every bridge they cleared the monsters got harder and harder, while there were more of them each wave. The kid kept going onto the bridge to shriek "help" then come back, and Kirito was ready to stab the annoyance. No matter how many bridges they cleared, another was always there for the kid to ask for help to clear.

Patty was the first to have to back off from the bridge fighting as her health dropped too low and she wanted them to save their healing items. Apparently she'd drawn animals on all the healing items, so she didn't want them using some. She was followed by Maka and Tsubaki, then Kid. They followed close behind, just in case they were needed. Liz, Kirito, Soul, BlackStar, and Crona kept fighting onwards. They fought all the way across the floor and the sun was going far down despite the fact that when they'd started the quest it was around lunch time.

The monsters were more annoying than anything to Kirito. He could take them out all day without any problem, but there was just so many of them that he was glad there were the DWMA students to share the agro and take a few out.

Finally, underneath the boss tower, the kid who led them over so many bridges stopped and thanked the players for their support.

"Thank you. I pick up apples from here, if you would like I could take you inside and show you where some rare apples are?" Behind him was a cave that opened up into some sort of clearing a hundred feet back. Kirito could sense the foolishness in this, but accepted the NPC's request. Kid shot him a look, but Kirito shook his head to dismiss it, there had to be some sort of rare loot in there, the quest progress bar hadn't showed the quest as finished just yet.

The kid walked inside the cave and the players followed. The cave was dark and dank, smelling like mold and mildew. The walls were slimy with water and moss, and the floor was more squish than step. The walls seemed to close in around you, getting smaller as they went inwards.

When they reached the clearing, the kid ran over to a tree an picked a few apples and stuck them in his pockets. He pointed upwards into the tree.

"The good ones are up there."

Kirito looked at his companions, "So, who's upgraded their climbing skill the most?"

BlackStar held up his hand from the back of the group, and Kirito gestured for him to try. The blue-haired ninja readied himself, then ran right towards the tree, blazing fast in his approach. Behind him was a dust trail that stopped once he jumped onto the lower branches of the tree. BlackStar steadied himself against a branch, then continued his way upwards. Once at the top, he called back down.

"Guys! There's a golden apple up here, a prize for my greatness!"

"Right, BlackStar," Tsubaki said, "Now bring it down so we can all see it."

BlackStar picked the apple from its point at the top of the tree, and jumped down to land lightly in front of his friends. He held out the apple, "Look."

The apple was pure gold, shining a light from inside and reflecting everybody's faces in it. The NPC kid looked at it as well, then took it from BlackStar's hands.

"This is for mama!" He cried out and started to run, but didn't get far before tripping over a tree root. The apples spilled from his pockets all over the ground.

Where every apple hit, the ground seemed to rise up from itself, forming bodies of mud. The mud-creatures looked at the boy, who pointed at BlackStar.

"He angered mama."

The mud-creatures didn't look to happy about that, and Kirito wasn't too happy himself at Kayaba's programming. Who makes a little boy sell out people to monsters so he could get apples, that just isn't right.

Freaking Kayaba.


	18. Mama

"Well crap." Kid said, looking at the mud monsters warily. They didn't look as easy as the monsters on the bridge. "Any ideas Kirito?"

Kirito stared down the mud monsters, holding his blade out towards them, threatening them. So long as there was steel between him and his foe, they wouldn't do anything sudden.

"I say that we don't strike until they try something. Keep your swords out, but no sudden moves." He shot a look at BlackStar, who nodded, all serious now instead of his normal annoying self. "I actually am kind of curious about this 'mama' character."

The mud monsters walked forward a bit, but stopped as they saw Kirito's sword. Kirito looked over the monsters shoulders to check on the little boy who had told the monsters that they 'angered mama', he was still there, standing and smiling with some sick grin plastered onto his face. The smile was uncanny, stretching too far, showing too many teeth. The teeth were even filed into points, something that Kirito hadn't seen before on an npc.

"Mama will deal with you." The kid said, not breaking his smile, instead letting his skin stretch further to reveal more teeth. There was hardly any stopping the amount of teeth. "She doesn't like people coming here. But she needed the apple. You should come with me."

Kirito didn't trust it for a second. He kept his sword held straight out and didn't move from his spot.

"Or you can be killed." Said the boy.

The kid waved his hand and sent a shock wave through the air to hit the tree, and more apples from the tree fell to hit the ground and twice as many mud monsters appeared to look expectantly at the kid for orders.

Surrounded. Both sides, and only one exit. Kirito looked at the others.

"Your choice."

Kid took a look around his surroundings and shrugged, sheathing his sword and gesturing for his companions to do so as well. Only BlackStar had refrained from doing so for a split second, then he saw the glare Kirito was giving him. _Don't mess us all up for your pride._ It was saying. BlackStar sighed, and sheathed his blade. Kirito nodded approvingly, "Alright." He said to the kid, "Take us to Mama."

The kid waved his hand, and the monsters all turned back into apples. He walked around, collecting the apples in some sort of magical sack he procured from his pocket. The sack never seemed to fill up, even though the kid put around fifty apples in it. Once that was done, he walked right out of the cave. They followed cautiously, looking at the open bridges that they could use to escape, but forgetting that idea instantly once the kid looked back and shook his bag of apples.

The walk was short. Leading from the cave entrance over one bridge and to another cave entrance. This one gaped like a wound in the cliff side. Water dripped from stalactites onto those walking into the cave, they even looked like teeth from the right angle. The cave was damp and dank, giving the sense of moisture as often as the moisture actually dripped on the players. None of it seemed harmful though, otherwise there would be some sort of damage given to the players as they got rained on from the cave.

The cave was long, leading far into the cliff side. Snaking deep into the cliff, turning back and forth, down forks in the road that the kid seemed to know by heart.

"Must be some sort of disguised monster." Whispered Soul to Maka, who gripped her sword's hilt tighter.

"We're being led right into a trap." She whispered back, "He's going to take us to some sort of boss, and we haven't leveled up enough to take down anything on this floor yet."

"Don't think that way, that will just get you killed faster."

Maka nodded, but didn't lessen her grip on the sword. Kid clearly had the same thoughts as her, as his blade was halfway out of its sheath, ready to slice through anything in milliseconds.

But nothing attacked them as they walked down. Mud monsters watched them pass from other hallways, but never followed or attacked, they saw the boy and stopped what they were doing to watch. There was an angle in the ground, and Kirito sensed that they were going downwards as well as inwards.

"Be ready for anything." He told his companions, by now he was glad that he'd gone with them. They could use an extra guy if they were going to fight a mid-floor boss and live.

When the tunnels finally opened up onto a ledge seeing into a cavern, the view stunned most of the players for a moment. It was beautiful. Underwater lakes fed by stalactites dripping water from the ceiling, shining from light sources in some form of an ore. The place was a playground, or something that could've been sold as a resort, people would've paid to go and just spend minutes there, taking in the view. In fact, that's what the players did. They stood there for a minute, just looking at their surroundings. The kid looked expectantly at them, and when they didn't respond he told them that Mama wouldn't want people to be late. That snapped Kirito and his companions out of their stupor, the thought of a mid-floor boss somewhere in this cavern, they gripped their swords tighter and followed the kid down a path to the side.

The mud monsters in the cavern looked up from the tasks they were doing, collecting the ores giving off light or scooping water into sacks that looked like the kid's sack, but didn't follow.

"This," The kid said as they approached a giant boulder in the middle of the cavern, surrounded by a small lake acting like a moat. "Is Mama."

The kid ran up to the boulder, swimming through the moat to climb all the way up to the top of 'Mama's' shoulder. When he was at the top, he tapped on the boulder's top.

"Mama, there's people here." And the boulder started to shake.

Pebbles fell from the top of the boulder to land in the lake-moat. The boulder sprouted two hands from its sides, and two appendages at the bottom looking like legs. Kirito's hand seemed to be permanently stuck to his sword's grip from how hard he gripped it.

The boulder set its feet on the ground and shakily rose up into the air to stand. The boy on the top of the boulder held on for dear life as the boulder shook and rumbled below him. Finally, once it was fully standing, the boulder sprouted something that could have passed for a face in the middle of itself. The rock seemed to chisel itself away to make eyes, nose, and a mouth, all sinister, pointing at the players. The chiseled mouth cracked itself into a smile, more of a grimace, and spoke.

"Oh, company."

The rock had an unnaturally sweet voice, kind of like a nice grandmother who you'd go over and she'd give you as much food as you could eat.

"Why did you bring humans down into the cavern?" She asked the boy, "You know I don't like listening to them babble on about their quests, or shops, or players. Kill them before they start annoying me."

From the lake, several mud monsters sprouted. Kirito drew his blade, and he wasn't the only one who did it. The sound of metal scraping on leather sheaths filled the cavern, coming from the small group of players. The mud monsters stopped. 'Mama' glared at them curiously.

"Weapons?" She asked, "I don't remember seeing the humans with weapons. They always came down here unarmed."

Kirito decided to test his right to speak.

"We're not any humans you've seen yet. No real humans were up on this level until earlier today."

"But my son here was abandoned by them." She gestured to the boy sitting on her shoulder. "They were programmed to be disgusting humans who don't even think twice about abandoning a little boy."

"We're not programmed."

'Mama' looked at them with, if it was possible, an even more curious look.

"You... Aren't programmed? You're players."

Kirito nodded. "Yes. Players made it to this floor earlier today. I'm willing to assume that the boring humans you used to see were just NPCs."

'Mama' opened her mouth and laughed, a booming noise that bounced off the cavern walls to return with an echo. It sounded as if a hundred 'Mamas' were laughing at once.

"Finally!" She said after the outburst. "Finally you've arrived. I've gotten tired of those NPCs, though my little boy here is one. I think that you all deserve a little explanation about me, judging by your confused faces."

Her words were apt. Most of the players hadn't heard a program talk so coherently. It was as if they were talking to another human being. Just they were a boulder. With a son.

"I'm what you would call an 'AI'. When Kayaba programmed me into this game he gave me a more powerful program running me directly. In fact, I'm hooked up in a direct link to the central program in Aincrad. This allows me to have intelligence on an almost human level."

The speech sounded as if it had been contemplated for months.

"Kayaba made me to be a sort of... Guide for players. I have all the knowledge in the game, to a limited fashion."

Kirito stared open mouthed. An AI?

"What does the A stand for in AI?" BlackStar said from the front of their group.

"Artificial."

"And the I?"

"Intelligence."

"Oh. So you're the God I have to beat!"

Taubaki held her partner back as he struggled to charge down 'Mama'. Kirito sheathed his blade.

"Thank you- er, what are we to call you?"

"Call me mama." Mama said to them. Mama reached up to her shoulder and grabbed her son by his shirt and set him on the ground. "So what did you come here to learn?"

"Learn?" Asked Kirito.

"Uh-huh. I'm a guide, remember? Or did you forget from the last few seconds. I'm here to assist players in their quests. There is limits though. I can't give any direct hints on bosses or floors that haven't been reached yet. And it's limit to one question per player. No redoes, no take backs."

"Learn. Okay." Kid said, "Can I ask you if-". He stopped when mama held up a finger.

"Please. There's something I need all of you to do first, before I'm able to be fully capable of assisting any player who came to me. It's all part of a quest. And those who finish this quest gets one free question from me, in addition to your original question."

Kirito nodded, "Yes ma'am, name it."

"I need for you to fight the system in charge of Aincrad."

Kirito stared blankly. Liz held her mouth open, stuck in a continuous "Whaaaaaaaa-?"

"The, system?" Soul asked. "As in the all powerful thing we live our lives in? The thing that has us trapped here at Kayaba's orders?"

"Yep!"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yep!"

"And you think we'd be able to fight... The system."

"Yep!"

Kirito shrugged. "Alright, let's do it."

Maka stared at him in disbelief. "Uhhhh. Are you sure about that? It's kind of all powerful here."

She grabbed Kirito's arm, but he ignored her, instead asking mama what they would need to do.

A new quest marker appeared in their play logs, taking the place of the quest the little boy had given them.

"Here's your job..."

A/N: Whoooo. Almost to the twenty chapter benchmark. And boy is it going to be a chapter to remember. I wanted to take the time right know to remind everybody reading this that I read ALL of your comments and love to hear how you think this story is going. Please tell me your ideas or criticism, as they both make me a better author and make the story more fun for all of you. And as always: Have A Great Day, Dlahm out!


	19. A puzzling fight

"Come on," BlackStar grumbled, "I'm not able to show how big I am from here."

"Yes, but I can see your bigness, and when you show up to help out everybody else, they will see that too." Tsubaki's soothing voice calmed down the ninja. They were deep within Mama's caves, split off from the rest of their group at Kirito's discretion, but working to complete Mama's quest so that she could access her power and assist players.

Their task was supposed to be that they defeat a monster deep within the caverns, Mama told them that by doing that they would free up her ability to give out information to players. BlackStar didn't understand how that went against Aincrad's core programing, but a monster would be easier than the program Kayaba made himself. Though wouldn't that make the program be one of the gods of Aincrad? No, only a demigod, Kayaba is the only god here.

"But how long would that take? whined BlackStar.

Tsubaki smiled compassionately. "Kirito said that it'll probably take them twenty minutes to reach the monster's cavern. So we need to wait fifteen minutes and then follow them to come in and take the monster by surprise. Think of it as another assassination."

BlackStar scoffed, turning his head to look at the cave wall. "That's still over twenty minutes that they can't bask in my greatness." He tweaked his nose, which had stopped bleeding from when Kirito poked it with his sword to threaten BlackStar, seemed like everybody had a point of no return for BlackStar. With the tweak it began bleeding data again in a small stream down the side of his face. Tsubaki saw this on BlackStar's head and walked over to clean it off. As she cleaned the data with her sleeve, her motherly nature turned melancholy.

"BlackStar," started Tsubaki, "How long have we been here in Aincrad? I've lost track of time."

"Well, clearly we've been here for... huh, I forgot as well." BlackStar's 'Know-it-all' attitude melted away. "It has to be more than two or three months, we haven't been here for too long."

"Do you think the DWMA is still looking for us?"

Tsubaki's question caught BackStar off guard, but he recovered his composition quickly.

"Death's own son is stuck in here. If anything, the DWMA have us in the nurse's room right now, trying to figure out how to get us out without frying out brains. Kayaba's probably already been arrested. I guess that we've just got to hold out a little longer."

They waited in silence after that. Once fifteen minutes was up, Tsubaki and BlackStar walked in silence down the cave corridor. It didn't take long to start hearing the battle. The clash of steel and monster screams traveled far up the cave, echoing off the walls to maybe go all the way up to Mama's own cavern.

The monster's area was also a cavern, much smaller than Mama's cavern, but still quite large. BlackStar now understood why Mama said they'd be going up against the system the second that he saw the monster from the cavern entrance.

Kirito, Maka, Soul, Kid, and Crona were circling the monster. Patty lay off to the side unconscious with Liz by her, trying to wake her up.

The monster itself was massive, reaching the ceiling of the cavern, and incredibly musclebound. Or, at least, it looked musclebound. it was hard to determine muscularity when the whole of the monster seemed to be made up of thousands of bugs. If it was a swarm of bees, or mosquitoes, or even gnats, BlackStar couldn't tell; it was just a constantly shifting figure made up of the flying bugs.

As he watched, Kid ran a distraction, sprinting across the side and drawing the monster's attention. The monster's arms extended into a column of the bugs and shot right at Kid's head. Kid saw the attack coming and hit his knees on the ground to slide under the attack. Soul and Crona came in from the side and slashed at the monster's unprotected back. Their swords went straight though the monster and an alert appeared above the monster's head.

"Immortal Object"

BlackStar's breath caught in his throat.

"An invincible monster?" He whispered to Tsubaki.

"That must be the system's involvement in this. There needs to be some other way to defeat it."

From where Tsubaki and BlackStar were, they were out of sight behind an outcropping of rocks. They watched the battle progress slowly, desperately trying to analyze the monster and find a point that could be damaged. Then BlackStar remembered Liz and Patty, who were off to the side of the fight.

He whispered an explanation to Tsubaki, then snuck down behind rocky outcroppings to reach Liz.

"Liz!" BlackStar hissed from where he was hidden, "What the hell is that thing?"

Liz looked up from her sister, who was still knocked out, "Black- OH! That's what we've got to beat. It doesn't even have a name above its HP, but it has a whole five HP bars, and nobody's done any damage to it."

"Any idea on how we could beat it?"

"Well, before it attacked us, we were able to read a riddle that was written on the ground in front of it."

And she recited.

"In the blackness of the cave.  
Lies the spirits from their rage.  
forming that which will engage  
and send the players to their graves.  
This beast, unbeatable in stature.  
Always strikes, Harder, Faster.  
Invincible he can blast through.  
Anything standing in his room.  
Should anybody step down inwards.  
They will meet this evil killer  
And hope to god you find his weakness  
Lest the only surety's death's grips  
As a little helpful hint  
I, Kayaba, give you this  
One small tip to light the way,  
So you see the light of day.  
Have fun.  
Don't die."

BlackStar groaned and rubbed a hand on his head, "Damn psycopath. Wonder how badly he needed therapy."

"That's all he gave us to figure it out." said Liz, who was trying to lift the unconscious Patty over her shoulder. BlackStar went out and helped her lift Patty and went back to Tsubaki's position without the monster noticing them as it was distracted by a head on assault from Kirito.

BlackStar could see the HP of his friends go down each time a bug touched them, it was as if they were made of acid or poison. He told Tsubaki about the riddle while helping Liz set Patty down. Tsubaki looked troubled, but she ignored the fight for a second just to think about the riddle.

"So we need to focus on the last couple of lines," She said, "Those first bunches of rhyming must be more of a warning not to enter. So all we need is line starting with 'One'. That might do it."

The ninja bonked himself on his head multiple times to try and get his brain working. All it did was just give a little bit of a bruise on his forehead.

"What's something that we could use?"

Tsubaki racked her brains as well, just without the hitting, which may have made a difference.

"One small tip to light the way, so you see the light of day? I think that we can disregard the other two lines as well, they won't ever be able to help us unless there's something in the spelling."

From where she was setting Patty down and getting her comfortable, Liz spoke up. "When did you get so good at riddles, Tsubaki?"

"When I was a little girl I did riddles all the time. Now, what do we see in those two lines, One small tip to light the way so you see the light of day? There has to be something in those two lines that can give us a hint."

"Light." BlackStar said, "Light is repeated. There's dim light in these caverns thanks to the light ore, but I don't see anything bright, maybe we need daylight or some sort of focused light?"

Tsubaki almost kissed BlackStar, she thankfully held back to only hugging him so that his ribs almost cracked. "That's it!" She said, "Light! We light our way to see the light of day!"

Liz also hugged BlackStar, then got out one of her items and grabbed it. A stick. In her other hand, a small match appeared. She struck the match against the ground, letting the light flood over them, granting warmth, then lit the torch.

She gave BlackStar the torch, then continued to tend to Patty, who was covered in a sweat and her breathing was ragged and raspy. BlackStar held the torch's wood in his hand, then nodded to his partner and they started to walk down the path to where their companions were still fighting the monster. The monster had switched form now, going from a giant to a massive scorpion of bugs. Every once in a while it would flip its tail at Kirito or somebody else and they'd be forced to dodge away.

Kirito wasn't doing too well. The scorpion targeted him over every other person there, and often he'd feel the stinging touch of the bugs on his skin and cloak before being able to brush them off. He was running out of healing crystals and other health items because of the constant HP loss that the bugs brought on. BlackStar saw another strike coming at Kirito, and rushed into the battle waving his torch in front of him.

The scorpion backed off violently, screeching something fierce. Kirito backed off as well in case of a desperate attack from the scorpion.

"About time!" Kid shouted at BlackStar, "Where were you?"

"Tsubaki and I deciphered the riddle," BlackStar shouted back while holding off the scorpion. "We can kill it with light! That's what the riddle meant, we kill it with light!"

And he was right, sure enough, the scorpion's HP bar was slowly going down.

"Grab more torches!" He yelled out to his friends.

Kid looked at his inventory and got out a stick, holding it close to BlackStar's for a moment, it lit up like a candle and he was at the front of the attack to push the scorpion back. Everybody else got out their own sticks and lit them on the other torches, slowly closing in on the scorpion once everybody was lit up.

The scorpion's HP dropped faster each time a new torch was lit, eventually rocketing past the red of the last bar and the scorpion struck out into the light in one final desperation attack. It lunged out at Soul, who had his torch held out right in front of his face, blinding him to the attack.

"No time!" Yelled Kirito, "Dodge, Soul!"

"Liz!" Kid yelled out.

"Tsubaki!" BlackStar yelled at the same time.

Both weapons flew into their meister's hands in their weapon forms and got in the way of the scorpion's attack. Tsubaki's ninja sword mode holding off the attack while Liz, as a gun, was blasting at the bugs at the edge of the attack. Together they beat the bug attack away from Soul's vulnerable face and back towards the scorpion. Then Crona walked up and shoved his torch into the scorpion's weakened hide. The bugs vanished into data.

Liz flew back into her human form, landing lithely on the ground next to Tsubaki, who did the same. They high-fived in celebration.

A blank stare was on Kirito's face.

"I... I thought you said that. You said that the game restricted your powers." He mumbled, not believing the display he just saw. Soul smiled and turned his arm into a scythe blade.

"Sorry, Kirito. Just didn't know if we could fully trust you."

Kid walked up and slapped Kirito on the shoulder, "It doesn't really change anything. All that it means is that we've got another thing we need to keep secret so that Kayaba doesn't just ruin us then and there. The powers are helpful, but only in emergencies. Otherwise we risk being found out."

Kirito's face remained blank. Kid sighed, "come on, let's go back up and finish this quest with Mama."


	20. questions

"Oh, excellent. She's freaking gone." said Soul exasperatedly once they were back up at Mama's cavern. "The massive Rock just disappeared. How did she even do that, wouldn't we have heard her moving, she's kind of heavy."

The cavern was completely empty. All the mud creatures were gone, the kid was gone, the rock known as 'Mama' was gone as well. The cavern was abandoned. Well, save for a few rocks here and there, but none as big as Mama was, or even alive.

"What the hell?" Kirito said, "Where did she go? She couldn't have just vanished."

"Could've been killed." Kid put in his two cents while examining the area inside the moat that Mama was on. Nothing. "But there's no residue or loot. There's not even a report on a destroyed item. And anyway, can't you not kill system objects?"

Liz walked up to him, "Well, we did kill that monster, and that was protected by the system. Does anyone even know what the monster's name?"

"It didn't have one, we would've seen it above the health bar." Somebody replied from behind BlackStar. Soul thought it was Crona, sure sounded like him. They took one more look around the cavern, and finding nothing, left. They walked back up to the surface and blinked as sunlight blinded them. There was a shadow standing in the sun's rays, and the group let their eyes adjust.

Standing before them was a woman, motherly and plump, smiling at them with the little boy from Mama's cavern in hand. The woman laughed joyfully, "So there you are, I was wondering when you would take out that monster."

Soul only stared, not thinking that this was really that thing.

"It's me, Mama. I told you that the system was restricting me. Now I don't have to live in that musty cave anymore, relying on those muddy monsters to do my business. Thanks for taking that... thing, out. I hope that it wasn't too much of a problem, the monster was known to be quite nasty from my monster's reports. I also heard that there was some sort of a puzzle?"

"yeah," Tsubaki said, "A riddle. BlackStar and I figured that out. The monster wasn't too much of a problem, more of a nuisance. So, what about the quest?"

She smiled, "Oh, right. Let me take care of that for you."

A quest completed marker came up over the quest tab in the menu. Their rewards were a question mark with the title _?._ Which just meant that the reward wasn't something physical.

"So that takes care of that. Your reward from me is a question of your choice, something other than the other question you'd get for just being a player of the game SAO. What do you want to ask?"

BlackStar walked up first to the motherly woman. "Who do I have to beat to become God of this world?" Behind him, the whole group sighed. They knew him too well, there wasn't anything else that they'd expect him to ask. It was only about him getting better, not about saving the people in the game.

Mama let go of her son's hand and closed her eyes. She wrinkled up her face and concentrated, then opened her eyes. The eyes were lightning blue, arcing with tiny white bolts through the iris. When she spoke, her voice was like it was spoken through a bucket and then magnified, deeper than any other voice BlackStar had heard.

"This is an impossible question, I am not allowed to tell you of any future bosses. However, this much is true: it is a boss on the hundredth level of Aincrad, you must beat the game to become god of here."

BlackStar stepped back, Maka walked forward.

"Is there any way to get a blade of my choice, for instance, a Scythe."

"I believe you already have one, my dear. It's right next to you."

Maka looked at Soul, who frowned and glared at Mama like she just told him that she would kill them all personally. Mama continued.

"This blade is completely real in the bounds of the game, though it is located in a hidden quest on the first floor. This quest lies below the Town of Beginnings, however, the recommended level for this is over ninety. You are not ready for it, yet you have the scythe. I applaud your dedication."

Soul stopped his glare, then stepped forward next to Maka.

"Where is the boss of this floor located?"

"Always in a hurry to get to the next floor. This floor's boss is located in a cave called 'chancellor's cave' and you will go down before you can go up. Be patient in the cave and you will be rewarded with an easier fight, though difficult none-the-less. There is your answer."

Him and Maka stepped back, allowing for Crona to walk forward.

"Is there any easier way to get out of this game other than all one hundred floors?"

"Yes. However, it still involves the boss that is at the hundredth floor. So long as you fight him before that time, you can escape this game at any time." Crona nodded and walked back, hand rubbing his arm in a shy fashion. Kid walked forwards.

"Is there any ranged weaponry in this game?" he asked.

"There is, on a future floor, throwing knives that will automatically return to your hand once you throw them. These weapons are extremely difficult to get, as they are the only weapons that can be thrown as projectiles and return to you, even more difficult than the quest to get the scythe."

Next was Liz.

"How do we defeat ghosts?"

Kid groaned, her unnatural fear was showing again.

"You may defeat the ghosts of the sixty second floor by light. That is the only way to kill them. Thankfully there are weapons on the floor before that which will reflect light as a weapon. These weapons are only useful against those ghosts."

Kid was surprised, there was going to be ghostly enemies, maybe her fear wasn't too unnatural or unfounded. But at Mama's words confirming ghostly enemies, Liz almost shrank with fear, it took Patty going forward and dragging her back to get her out of the trance. Patty asked her question.

"How do I find a friend?"

"There are animal companions available at any pet shop."

Kirito took Patty's place with his question, "Where can I get the best weapon?"

"A monster on the fifty first floor will drop a weapon that can surpass all else from monsters. Other than that, you can try your hand at forging a weapon. Those are the only ways to get weapons more powerful than ever.

Tsubaki was the last to ask her question.

"Is the DWMA still looking for us?"

The entire group looked at her in shock. None of them thought that they could ask about something outside of the game. As they watched, Mama's eyes flashed a few times, revealing news pages that flashed by in moments.

"No."

Tsubaki looked up in surprise and disappointment. "No?"

"No. They already know where you are. And they know where you are at all times within the game. They have apprehended Akihiko Kayaba's body from his work place and have placed his unconscious body under arrest. However they cannot wake him up for... certain reasons. They are trying desperately to get people out of the game, but have had no luck. In fact, your Lord Death has announced that they have students in the game and will not stop until they get them out and if they can read his quote they should know that they should play through the game and protect as many people as they can. Once they're out, they will be welcomed back as heroes."

The female ninja smiled warmly, "Thank you, Mama." And she bowed in respect to the system. Mama smiled back and bowed in the same fashion, "You might want to go north, that's where the boss's room will be found. Good luck, players. Tell others of the helpfulness of Mama, and maybe others may find out things that you would've never known about."

And with that, Mama's eyes went back to a brown color and she grabbed her son's hand. From there she turned around and walked off over several bridges before going out of sight from the rendering distance in SAO.

"Well then," Soul said, "Let's go north. Might as well get the grounds on this boss before we fight it. Maybe we can level up a few times on the way there." He looked to Kirito for his thoughts, but Kirito frowned and shook his head.

"I need to go. Thanks for cheering me up though. And BlackStar," he added, "sorry about the nose. I don't normally get angry." And he pulled out a healing item and placed it on BlackStar's body, letting the effect soak in to heal his nose and whatever HP he'd lost from the fight. "I'll see you guys around. Maybe at the boss fight."

Kirito walked off in the same direction as Mama, but hung right to go back to the first town. Soul assumed that he'd go back and report to the other front-liners about Mama and her ability. Soul looked back to his group, "So now what?" he asked, "I want to go find the boss, but what do you guys want to do?"

He looked at Maka, who was staring at Tsubaki, and he followed her gaze. Tsubaki had a manic look in her eye, something that they'd never seen out of the docile ninja.

"Uh, Tsubaki? Are you alright?" He asked cautiously, not sure what to do about the look.

"We're going to go find Mama again. I've got something else to ask her."

A/N: Yay! We made it to chapter 20! I just want to take the time to thank everybody who's supported me so far. I'm using a list to thank you, so if you don't want to read it, then you can skip down to the bottom for news.

To all those who followed:

Autobot StormBreaker  
EscapingRealityAlways  
Fanghur  
Hendrix8299  
KaeterinaRomanov  
Luna2859  
Naomi334  
SilverStarWolfGoddessAmarantha  
Squirrel-Cat-Gamer  
TwilitOwl  
Ulquiorra9900  
Whatstoknow  
animebella09  
hurricaneclaw  
ice888cream  
madij7717  
otakufairy  
pokemon-35055  
trbrew4

You kept me writing because I know that you wanted to read more of the SAO and SE cast in my own world. I want you all to know that I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to read this.

To all those who followed:

Autobot StormBreaker  
KaeterinaRomanov  
SilverStarWolfGoddessAmarantha  
Squirrel-Cat-Gamer  
TwilitOwl  
Ulquiorra9900  
Yami-The Lord of Darkness  
animebella09  
ice888cream  
pokemon-35055  
queenyuri

You all told me that what I was writing was worth it to keep writing. I thank all of you so much for doing this for me.

And to all those who have commented, whom I will not name as it may get confusing due to so many repeated names, I want to thank you for helping me get better at writing. Since chapter 1, I have gotten better, all thanks to you.

To all those reading right now. I thank you all too, you are special to everybody who has written a story.

So, onto the news. I want to say that I may be late for later chapters due to myself having a brand new job. So if it's a little late, don't worry, it'll be soon to be uploaded. I'm getting to be very busy, so please consider this and not come to my house with Pitchforks and torches ready to burn my home to the ground for a late chapter. Either way, I want to hear some criticism from you guys, let's keep making this story better! And As Always: Have A Great Day, Dlahm Out!


	21. Return to Town

"Tsubaki!" Maka called out as Tsubaki rushed ahead, "Come back!"

The manic energy Tsubaki had in her eye was now showing in her actions, she didn't slow down her sprint as she followed the route that Mama took. She sprinted across a bridge, slashing at a monster frog as she went. Soul finished the monster off as they gave chase.

"Tsubaki! At least slow down, you don't know if you'll run into something dangerous!" He yelled out as the frog dissipated.

"But I'e got to catch up!" Tsubaki called back, "I can't let Mama get too far, it'll be too hard to find her." Tsubaki looked back and Soul saw that her eyes were now glowing, a sign that she was in tracking mode to track Mama. Tracking mode was designed to be able to allow players to track other players. More often than not, red players and yellow players used this to track their targets and kill them. As a ninja and an assassin, it was only right that she leveled up that skill.

Soul and his other DWMA student tried to follow her, but Tsubaki stayed ahead of everybody. Tsubaki gave a passing swipe at every monster she ran by, letting the other students finish them off.

"Jesus, Tsubaki, slow down!" BlackStar yelled after her. Nobody could catch up to her, she at least matched, if not bettered, all of their speeds. However, after around five more minutes of consistent running, Tsubaki stopped on her own and deactivated the tracker mode. Her friends caught up and leaned over their knees to catch their breath.

Tsubaki re-activated tracker mode, then dropped it again. she sighed, "Mama's tracks stop here. There's no sign of them nearby."

"Teleportation?" Kid said when he recovered his breath, "That's always an option, especially when she's part of the programming. She could probably do anything the system would let her."

"Maybe, but I've got an idea." Tsubaki started walking back the way they came, turning to go back to the town.

Kid placed a hand on his forehead and started rubbing it, "Are you kidding me, Tsubaki? Stop being so vague, tell us what your idea is. I'm kind of getting tired of having no knowledge on what's going on in your mind."

"Okay," said Tsubaki, "I think that the little kid who was with Mama will be back at the town, waiting for someone to take the quest to find Mama. She just disappeared here, but I'm willing to bet that there's some way to find her again, and that kid's where we start looking."

The answer brought a smile to BlackStar's face, "Yep! That makes sense! Let's get going already!" And he started walking off to the town with Tsubaki. Everybody else shrugged and tried to catch up and walk with them.

When they made it back to the starting town, no NPCs were outside, no NPCs other than the monsters. The demonic frogs they'd met outside the town were everywhere, in battle with players all over the town. soul could see Kirito and a girl he'd met at the boss raid last floor down, Asuna, fighting off a squad of the monsters. Soul watched as Kirito blocked a strike that would have hit Asuna in her back and returned to smash in the frog's face with his hilt. The frog dissolved, but more frogs took its place, forcing themselves into a crows around Kirito and Asuna.

Soul nodded to Maka and pulled out his sword, she followed him into the fight, hacking and slashing their way over to Kirito.

"Oi!" Soul yelled, jabbing his sword into a frog, "Kirito! What's going on?"

Kirito looked at soul, "These monsters spawned in a few minutes after I got back. All the other NPCs vanished and the monsters took their place, don't know why this happened, but it looks like we've got to fight them off."

A frog charged Kirito, but Soul kicked it away with the flat of his boot.

"Yeah, looks like that." He said dryly, "We need to get deeper into the city, maybe to the center, I bet that there's players there that need help."

Kirito nodded and made his way to Asuna, relaying what Soul said. She said something back and Kirito shrugged, opting to focus on a frog that was bearing down on him.

A look around himself told Soul that Maka was still at his back, skirt billowing out as she whirled around in a dance of death. The others were back at the entrance of the town, rallying players nearby to fight back. BlackStar himself was screaming and shouting bloody murder to try and get the other players to regroup with them.

"They're good enough to handle out here." Soul yelled out to Maka, Kirito, and Asuna, "Let's go."

They fought their way into the center of town, sweeping through the monsters like a bullet through water. Piercing and tearing through the enemy lines, driving between the monsters to blast them outwards. Along the way, they picked up a few players who were fighting for their lives among the horde of monsters, the players they picked up moved with them to the center of town and the hope of safety among other higher level players. Unfortunately, the monster's level and frequency of attack seemed to increase drastically the closer they got to the center of the town, to the point where each group of frogs gave Soul a harder time to beat than a mid-level boss.

The player on Soul's left, a small wiry guy with purple hair, screamed in pain. He vanished into data which dissolved as it met the air. Soul looked at where the guy had been standing in shock, death to a trash mob, something only a few players in SAO would ever experience as most trash mobs are just that: trash. The monstrous frogs got closer to Soul, so close that he could smell them. They reeked a bitter, pungent, odor that stung his nostrils like a spicy food.

"Back up!" Maka yelled, taking the spot of the dead player next to Soul, "Away from my partner!" Her sword made a steely arc in the air as she warded the monsters back.

"They're getting too strong," Kirito called out, "We've got no chance. None of us are in any position to actually take these mobs on at this frequency and difficulty."

The wave of frogs pressed forwards and Soul faltered under the pressure. He looked around for a way out and saw a home to his right.

"This way!" He called out to the small group of fighters he had with him. Soul activated a sword skill, which made his blade glow a pure white light, and dashed through the monsters with blazing fast speed, forcing all of them to dissolve from cuts to the gut. He kicked in the door to the house he had seen and held it open while everybody rushed inwards. The monsters surged, and Soul fled inside the house, shutting and locking the door behind him. The second the door closed, someone beat on it.

"Let me in! Let me in! Oh God, let me in!" Soul didn't look through the peephole that was built into the door, he could tell what was happening from the agonizing screams coming from outside. "Let me in already! Help, help! Gah! NO, GET AWAY! Aaaaah, help me! Please, do something! No! Damn it, get back! NO!"

And the voice stopped with the musical tinkle of data floating upwards into the sky.

Soul held the door shut as more monsters walked forwards to push against it, keeping it up until the banging stopped. Soul slumped to the ground and put his head in his hands, careful not to cut himself on his naked sword. Maka walked over to him and sat by his side, placing her hand on his to comfort him. His limbs were shaking violently, almost acting of their own accord.

"He died." Soul said, "He died. Damn it, he's gone. He's not going to return to the real world, he's gone."

"He was dead the moment he hesitated to run after us. There was nothing that you could've done to save him." Maka said to Soul in a soothing manner, she must have been emulating Tsubaki's soothing manner, because it did the trick on Soul, calming his nerves down and letting him regain control of his shaking extremities.

Soul sighed, letting his blade fall out of his hand and onto the ground with a clatter, "I could've held the door open for just a single second longer. he would've made it."

"And we would've had a problem on our own hands as all those monsters would've flooded into this home and killed everybody in here."

Soul, and mostly everyone else in SAO, had seen a death happen before their eyes, there was no way not to in this game of bloodsport. But never before had Soul been the cause of it, the removal of an innocent player's life in the game, the extinguishing of a light of humanity, a death.

The sounds of battle fell away from the house, the monsters losing interest in the players now out of their reach. Soul stood up, with Maka's steadying arm under his shoulder, and walked into the main room of the house. Around ten players, other than Maka and Soul, were seated on couches and chairs surrounding a glass table. "So," Soul said wearily, "What do you guys think we should do?"

A player with brown dreadlocks and a buckler attached to his shoulder frowned, "We're too far into the city, we can't fight our way out of here."

Kirito nodded at that, "We can't risk anybody else dying. We're only a fourth of the way into Sword Art Online, we can't take unnecessary deaths." The player with dreadlocks looked at him like he was insane.

"Did you really just say that?" He asked, "Did you really just mention the stats over somebody losing their life? That's cold, you're cold. You're concerned with only getting out of this game, not those with you getting out of the game."

Asuna held up her hand, "That's jumping to conclusions," She said, "You're both right here. It's just that one of you is looking at the short term and the other is looking at the long term. But both of you are right, we can't fight our way out without risking too much."

Soul nodded, "And so we wait? Maybe the mobs will despawn and the townsfolk will come back."

"Well, that might be hoping for too much," Another player, this one with a sword larger than himself said, "I'm thinking more along the lines of a rescue, or just waiting out the patience of the mobs so that when they're distracted or weakened we can sneak away."

"Not all of us are equipped for sneaking," Said a player larger than all the rest, with a massive battle axe and armor that could cover a rhinoceros, "I'd not only slow you down, but I'd make too much noise."

Kirito agreed with him, "Good point Agil, but altogether it seems that we've already reached the conclusion we need to look for. We must wait here. That much is settled, right?"

There were mumbled agreements all around the glass table.

"Well then, let's get comfy, 'cause we're going to be in this thing for the long haul."

 **A/N:** Yo, Dlahm17 here. I just wanted to call out that now that we're around halfway into the book, I want to make the plot a little more romantic centered. Not that the book won't still be about escaping SAO, I'm just going to provide a little fluff to lighten the mood while we're at it, sort of like SAO did in the last half of the first arc, when we saw Kirito and Asuna's relationship flourish. But, I want your opinions on what the ships should be. Since this is our own fanfic, which means that we don't have to be canonical to a T, I want you to vote on who you think the shipping should be. Drop a comment saying the ships you want, and I'll tally the votes and manipulate the story to make that, but nothing stupid and nothing inappropriate. I'll let you work out what you want the shipping to be like. And As Usual: Have A Great Day, Dlahm out.


	22. Escape from Town

'Long haul' was an understatement. There was, thankfully, some food in the house's cupboards because the monsters were there for days, trapping the players inside. Every hour Soul or Kirito checked outside for a brief moment and every time there was no sign of the monsters leaving or any other players coming to the rescue.

"Well," Maka said one day, "This sucks."

Second understatement of the week. There was nothing to do in the house other than play with a single deck of cards. All they were able to do is play poker or other card games the whole day. Boredom was completely rampant in the house, they couldn't even go outside to have a little fight with the monsters, there were too many of those stupid demon frogs outside. If they were to try and fight one, they'd be fighting hundreds.

"I raise two hundred Col." Soul told the group, manifesting the coins from his inventory and tossing them into the pile of steadily growing money. The person to soul's left, a pretty dumb guy who likes calling himself 'Master' eyed the pile enviously. Soul was amazed that 'Master' even made it past floor four from how dull and slow he was. He carried the most basic of swords, compared to Soul's curving saver he bought two floors back.

"I raise you twenty thousand Col." 'Master' said, dumping a whole pile of coins onto the pile. The counter above the pile of money displaying the amount jumped upwards twenty thousand.

Maka folded.

Kirito folded.

The other people playing all folded.

Soul looked at 'Master', the guy was middle aged, nowhere close to the young and active Soul. In fact, 'Master' was quite… heftier… than most other players, no matter the age he had.

"I'll call." Soul told the guy and tossed in his own money. With each clink the coins made on each other, Soul saw Master's face pale a little more. By the time the money stopped making noise, 'Master's face was a boney land of bleached skin.

Maka was acting as dealer, so she dealt out the last few cards before demanding the two players to flip over their own hands. Soul did so with confidence while 'Master' did so with regret.

"Full house, I win." Master said, his frown and regret melting off of his face like snow in the summer. He smiled with confidence that could rival BlackStar's own confidence. The confidence on Soul's own face, as he saw the hand, slid off.

"Well, looks like I lost." Soul murmured, "not really cool, huh."

Master wrapped his arms around the large pile of coins and dragged them all to himself. They disappeared into his inventory.

"Good game," Master said in an Irish accent, "That was pretty close, but I'm pretty sure that you don't have any more money that you want to lose to me. I'm a gambler in real life. So I'm pretty sure that you have no," he stopped as Soul asked Maka to deal another hand then shrugged, "Your choice, mate."

Soul nodded, "So why don't we just start off our pot at what, two hundred… thousand Col?"

The paleness returned to 'Master's' face.

"I think I'll just back out of this right now… there's really no reason to bet that much, I am a professional gambler, I know when to stop." Master said, getting up and moving over to the corner of the house's bottom floor. Soul chuckled, satisfied with the exchange despite the fact that he was now twenty thousand Col poorer. Maka looked at the other players warily and saw that they were also making excuses and moving away from Soul. Kirito sighed and went to sit on a couch, the game was over for him.

"Well then, that worked out as you expected it?" Maka asked Soul.

Soul showed off his pointed teeth with a wicked smile, "Yeah, knew he'd be one of those idiots who are among the swarm of noob players who rush to a floor when its opened. I bet you that he came from floor ten or lower. He's got a sword that couldn't even touch my health, I'm surprised he even survived the monster attack in the city: he's weak."

Maka nodded, "He doesn't seem to be the definition of strength that he's told us all that he's like in the real world."

"I bet that you slapping him would kill him straight out. Even if you only have those skinny bookworm arms."

"MAKA CHOP!"

Soul felt his skull bend slightly inwards, "Yep," he managed out through the pain and bloodhaze, "Just like that." And the pain overtook his body to make him pass out with a goofy grin on his face and drool dripping out. Soul slumped lifelessly over in his chair.

Maka's eyes widened as she saw Soul's health drop by half. They were still in a town, a safe zone, wasn't pvp still supposed to be disabled? Either way, she now had an unconscious Soul lying around. What to do…

She dragged him upstairs, bonking his body a few times on things like walls and stairs, and put him on an NPC's bed. Soul instantly started snoring loud enough to tell every monster in the city that he was in this house. Maka put a pillow over his head to muffle the noise; then, realizing that he was suffocating, put the pillow under his head. The snoring stopped.

"Now, let's see." Maka said.

When Soul woke up, he was curled up on the bed of the upstairs room. He couldn't remember what had happened leading to the point that he had passed out. The last thing he could remember was intimidating a wimpy player.

His head hurt… a lot. He didn't know why though. Soul started to feel his head, around the epicenter of the pain, wincing as even more pain nerves fired and lanced through his head. There was some sort of dent in the top of his head, it was shallow, but excrutiating.

"Gaah," Soul moaned.

The door opened and revealed Maka, she walked in and pressed some ice to Soul's injured head. It hurt, but this time the pain was starting to be numbed by the ice. Soul tested his voice.

"What the hell happened, Maka?" He asked, his voice was scratchy and dry, more of a rasp than anything. Maka shushed him.

"I used my Maka chop on you without thinking. It seems like your skull caved inwards a little bit. That's never happened before, I'm so sorry, Soul."

Soul shook his head, and immediately regretted doing so. "It's all okay. You just put a little more oomph than usual into the hit. Now we just need to focus that oomph at the monsters. Speaking of which, are they still outside?"

Maka nodded, "You've been out for a day and the monsters are still here. We're running out of food in the house."

"Well, then we need to get moving." Soul tried to push himself out of bed, but Maka held him down.

"You need to rest. I almost killed you, Soul, your skull caved inwards. If that doesn't warrant a rest, I don't know what does. We have enough food to last one more day, you rest for a little longer and then we'll try to escape."

Soul sighed, "You do remember that we're in a video game, right?" He pulled out a crystal. "Heal."

And the crystal broke into data shards. Soul felt his head crack and mold to return to normal (not a normal feeling, mind you… it was like his head was being broken all over again), his health rose to full capacity, and energy coursed through his veins. "Yeah, I'm good. Let's go downstairs."

They went downstairs to see everybody already there, playing poker… still.

"Dear god," Soul finally said after watching the boring match for around thirty minutes, "Let's just get out of this house already! I'm tired of being in here, let's go!"

"We'd need to get a plan ready." 'Master' said as he played his hand.

"No," Soul told Master, "We don't. Grab your swords everyone, I think I'm going insane from staying still for so long, and I'm tired of it." Soul strode over to the door and kicked it right above the lock. The lock broke off of the door and it swung outwards on its hinges, squeaking slightly. Soul pulled out his sword as every monster nearby looked up at him.

Every player in the house looked at Soul like he was clinically insane, which he might have been from being cooped up for days. Soul shrugged at the funny looks they were giving him, completely indifferent to what they might have been thinking. "Your choice. That door's not going to close ever again." And he took his sword and slashed right through the hinges, cleaving the door from the wall. The monsters all started to run at Soul.

He kicked a frog away and parried a blow from another, slashing through it.

"Let's go already!"

Another frog launched itself at Soul, but suddenly Maka was at his side, shearing off the frog's face at the skull before it could touch Soul.

"Let's go!" Maka echoed Soul. There was scuffling sounds behind them as the players grabbed weapons and armor. Very soon the whole group was outside of the house, hacking and slashing at any monster nearby.

Soul and Kirito whirled around each other fluidly the second he joined in the fight, never ceasing their strikes on the monsters in front of them. Then Kirito stumbled and fell behind Soul and Asuna jumped in front, her rapier jabbing into frog flanks and faces alike. And then Maka was by Soul's side. Meister and Weapon fighting together like they were one creation, which they really were.

The group, a small army at heart, made their way to try and reach the edge of the city, trying desperately to make it out of the center where the most powerful monsters were.

"C'mon! Keep going!" Kirito yelled as a player fell and was overcome by the monsters, never to get up. "Don't stop!"

Kirito himself broke off into a run, sprinting into the middle of a large group of monsters. He jumped out of his sprint and flung his body through the air, feet first. He landed himself on a frog's head and twisted his body, sliding for a bit on the now rotating frog. He spun his sword deftly, cutting the throat out of another frog before kicking his ride out from underneath him into a few other monsters. The frogs rushed him, but Kirito bashed in two's heads with his sword's hilt and powered up a sword skill.

He was a blur with the skill, drawing shapes in any frog nearby, cutting them open with a skill nobody else in the game could rival. All that Soul could see of Kirito's sword was the aura trail of where it had been, not where it was. One of the frogs rushed in under Kirito's guard to cut his calf, but that just seemed to make him fight faster, harder. He elbowed the frog before it could back away and then spun his body to land his heel across the frog's face. Keeping the spin momentum going, Soul jumped again, driving the point of his heavy boots into the frog's skull. Soul heard the cracking of the frog's skull over the whole battle's din.

Kirito completely cleared away the frogs in front of the group, leaving Soul, Maka, and Asuna room to rush forward and hold the ground. Another player fell and his friend tried to save him, both were overtaken by the frogs.

But they were making it, the enemies were getting easier and easier to beat, there were less of the monsters, if you fell then it wasn't going to be instant death. Kirito stepped back from the front line, letting other players take his place. It took almost three players to fully cover the hole in the front line that Kirito was originally in.

"Soul! Maka! Kirito!"

Soul heard the voice somewhere in front of him, beyond the crowd of monsters. It sounded like BlackStar, but Soul couldn't see the blue hair representing the ninja anywhere.

Then, slashing through the monsters, was a large group of players led by Kid, Tsubaki, BlackStar and Crona. Liz and Patty were not there. Every player on the floor seemed to be in this group, making their way into the monstrous horde. There were easily hundreds of players there to push ahead.

"Soul! Maka!" Kid yelled out, "You're alive!"

"Oh thank god!" Tsubaki said, giving Maka a hug in the small break she got while the others pushed past Soul's group of around ten players.

The army of players pushed into the center of the town, spearheaded by the efforts of Kid, Kirito, Asuna, Soul, Maka, Tsubaki, and BlackStar. Later Soul learned that Liz and Patty were taking care of the flanking forces so that no monsters were left un-killed.

They took back the whole town within hours, finding groups of players hidden in houses like Soul and Maka were. In taking back the entire town, the NPCs returned.

Apparently, each of the groups of players that had originally escaped the town had to be rounded up and organized. That was what had taken the majority of the days that Soul, Maka, Kirito, and Asuna were trapped in the house, new players kept showing up at the edge of the town in order to help with the rescue attempts. But no matter what had happened, or how many players had lost their lives, Kayaba's attempt to kill off the front lines had failed, they kept fighting. But Tsubaki and her friends still had one thing left to do on the floor before fighting the boss of the floor.

Find Mama.

 **A/N: Well then, I'm hoping that you folks still have ideas for ships, I didn't get that many last chapter. C'mon, show your ship, I want to know what characters you think would make the best couples. Either way, Have A Great Day, Dlahm out!**


	23. Break

"Damn it, Tsubaki, I thought that you said that the kid would be our best bet." BlackStar moaned, rubbing his sore feet as he sat down on a public bench, sprawling in the moonlight. "We've been looking for hours, let's just go back to the hotel room. I've seen more of the city than I'll ever care about, and I don't think that there's anybody here who could help us out, NPC or otherwise."

Tsubaki shrugged, determined to find any clue that could take the group to Mama. "We've only been walking for ten hours; we can keep looking. Or are you not as big as you say you are. Someone big can look for, at the very least, twelve hours. If you've got to stop right now I might not have reason to believe you're all that big." She grinned coyly as she turned her back to BlackStar, letting her words sink into his skull. In her mind she counted down from five, reaching zero right as BlackStar exploded like a grenade.

"Not big?" He started, "Not big!? I'm way bigger than anything, I'm massive! I am as big as a skyscraper, there's nothing that I'm not bigger than! I'm as big as a god! There can't be any reason for you to think that I am smaller than that!"

Tsubaki turned to watch BlackStar blast off from the bench and run around faster than the untrained eye could really detect, ranting the whole time about how big he was and how small the world was compared to him. Tsubaki snickered to herself, then reached out to pluck BlackStar when he raced by her. She lifted up the excited ninja, keeping his fast moving legs from gaining traction.

"I think that we could take a small break." Tsubaki told BlackStar. Visibly, BlackStar relaxed, but his pride had been pricked and his bluster remained at full blast.

BlackStar's legs kept pumping as fast as they could. "Well that's good and all, but I think that we could look for another twenty hours without stopping, what about you?"

"I think that we should take a break."

And the bluster left.

"That's a good idea, thanks Tsubaki."

They decided to go back to the hotel room Crona had rented when they started looking for Mama. It was all the way on the other side of town, a wonderful walk for BlackStar's already sore feet. By the time they had gotten back, the blisters on the bottom of BlackStar's feet had all swollen to the size of tennis balls and some had even burns to soak his socks and shoes with foul smelling pus. After the first blister broke, Tsubaki had sniffed the air delicately, realized the smell emanated from BlackStar's foot, and held a hand over her mouth and nose the whole walk back.

Only Crona was in the hotel room when BlackStar and Tsubaki got back, sitting on a couch while sharpening Ragnarok's edge. He looked up as the Meister and Weapon pair walked in; Ragnarok going from Crona's lap to back in his neck where he sat there, looking at Tsubaki expectantly with his bulbous eyes.

"So!" The little Ragnarok screeched, "Bring anything back for me!?"

"No, Ragnarok, there's more important things in this game than your sweet tooth. How about saving lives, for an example." Tsubaki explained patiently. Over the years Ragnarok had gone from a bully to more of an annoying pet. Like a small dog who barks altogether too much.

"Yeah, screw them. I don't know them, they don't matter. Gah, you should've brought me some candy. Especially some of those suckers from floor twelve, those were good." And Ragnarok disappeared back into Crona's neck, bonking the back of Crona's head on the way down. Crona shivered a bit as Ragnarok disappeared. "It always seems to tickle me a bit," He said, "I don't know what to do about it."

BlackStar shrugged, "I think that's just what it's going to feel like, no way around it. So is there anything in the cabinet?"

"Yes, Maka and Soul grabbed some fruit, some meat, and a little bread and cheese from the town's market, there should be plenty in there."

When BlackStar emerged from his dive into the cabinet he had several plums, a wedge of cheese, and a sausage in his mouth and a loaf of bread and a pomegranate in his right hand.

"Yeshp, dish m'uff esh gud." He swallowed, "speaking of those two, where are Maka and Soul?"

"Apparently Soul wanted to treat Maka to dinner, so they went out to a restaurant a while ago. Also, Kid, Patty, and Liz are on the field, grinding for experience and Col. Haven't heard from them in about an hour or so, but they should be fine."

Tsubaki sat down on a stool and leaned forward, completely engrossed in what Crona had said.

"Which restaurant was soul going to treat Maka to?' She asked, "Details man, c'mon."

"I think that they wanted to go to one of the lower floor's high end restaurants, I don't know exactly."

Tsubaki smiled warmly, "Well, I'm hoping that they have a pretty good time."

The crowd was cheering in the rough floor four alehouse. Even the NPCs wanted to have a side win this match. The place was dirty, it was smelly, it was rough, and it was awesome.

"C'mon, Maka!" Soul snarled from behind her, "Finish him already, he's nowhere close to you."

"Shut it Soul, I don't need help."

Maka's face was calm as she arm-wrestled the overgrown hulk who called himself a man. She was dwarfed by him, he was easily two or three times her height and weight; and no doubt two to three times her strength in real life. But Sword Art Online was a video game, and the man's face was beet red as he struggled for air, putting all his strength into at least making the little girl's arm move two inches.

"You know something?" Maka asked the bulky man, "I've grown tired of this little match, who wants to be next in line?" She called out in to the crowd of players and NPCs surrounding the arm-wrestling match.

The man sputtered, sweating profusely, "I'm… not… done… with… you… yet." He managed.

He lasted for another half a second before Maka slammed his hand through the table they were arm-wrestling on. The table cracked in half under the force Maka put into it.

"Well, I'm done with you, who's next?"

There were murmurs from all the players in the crowd, nobody stepped forward to challenge the young girl who took down the humungous bulk.

"What level are you?" Somebody in the crowd asked. Soul couldn't tell who, but he could hear the fear and apprehension in the voice. Maka showed her level to the crowd, letting it appear above her player marker, and the murmurs and whispers stopped into a physical force of silence. As Soul and Maka watched, most players slowly stepped away.

Soul shrugged, "Well that scared all of them off."

"Not my fault that they aren't trying to level up. Also not my fault that he wanted to arm-wrestle." Maka told Soul, "And didn't you say that you would take me some place fancy?"

Soul specifically remembered saying that, but he waved the comment off. "Nope, I said that I would take you some place cool. Not fancy, and aren't you having fun?"

Soul didn't see Maka's eyes roll but he did hear her mumble under her breath, "I thought we were going on an actual date." She walked to a window and looked across the street to where several couples were entering a fancy restaurant which had pleasant music emanating from it to overlap with the rough noises of the alehouse. They looked so happy, the couples, with the girls's arms wrapped through their guys's own. When Maka and Soul had dressed to go out, they went dressed for someplace along those lines. Soul had chosen a black and sleek suit while Maka decided to go in a pretty dress, she expected them to go out somewhere nice, not ragtag. Hoping to look like one of those couples she was watching.

She kept staring at the happy couples, not seeing a man dressed in a serving suit walk across the street to enter into the dirty bar. The man in the serving suit walked over to Soul and whispered in his ear, then went right back across the street.

Soul stepped forwards, straightened his suit, and tapped Maka on the shoulder.

"Our host just told me that our table is ready." He said to Maka. Maka looked at the bartender in the bar, who was an NPC, and then at the few wooden and worn down tables.

"Our… Host?" She asked, puzzled by Soul's choice of words, such an alehouse would never have a host.

Soul nodded, "Yes. We should probably go before the reservation I set up is voided. I got us a really nice table."

The look Maka told him what she thought of all the tables in the bar, but Soul's smile put her off guard. He offered his arm and wrapped hers through it, mimicking the position the couples she'd been watching were in.

She expected Soul to walk to the only open table in the room, which just happened to be right next to the guy she beat in the arm-wrestling contest. But instead he took her out of the bar, tossing a col to the bartender on the way out, and they walked across the street. With every step Maka grew a smile on her face and by the time Soul was talking to the host her face seemed to be at least ninety percent grin.

"How are you folks doing tonight?" Said the man at the front desk of the restaurant.

Soul looked at Maka, "I don't know, are we having a good night?"

Maka moaned in happiness, like something in her rib cage had melted. Soul nodded at the host, "Yeah, I think tonight is now going pretty well."

Their table was at the third story, a round thing with a pristine white table cloth. Soul backed the chair out for Maka and took his own seat once she was settled.

"A server will be right with you two. Enjoy your meal."

Soul smiled at Maka, then gestured to the window, "Enjoying the view?" he asked politely. Maka looked outside.

They could see all across the city they were in, twinkling lights in houses and the sounds of a fight breaking out in the alehouse across the street. But that sound was quickly overcome by the pleasing warble of a violin player on a stage. Maka relaxed, sinking back in her chair to enjoy the night.

"Yeah, it's beautiful." She said.


	24. Dinner's end

"I wonder how the others are doing right now." Maka told Soul contently, she drank a little more of the warming wine that Soul had ordered for the two of them. "I mean; we're having fun here while they're out doing god-knows-what. For all we know, Soul, Kid has decided that BlackStar is way too unsymmetrical to have around and has smacked him silly… again."

Soul shrugged and stifled a belch, "I don't know. And to tell the truth, I don't care. They're smart enough to take care of themselves, they won't run into any trouble while we're here. And anyway, it's night time, they should all be back at the hotel room right now."

The meal had been stupendous. The appetizer was a delightfully fresh course with some sort of mango dish, followed up by a juicy steak on Soul's end and a high class arugula salad for Maka. The wine came with the meal, thankfully it wasn't actually alcoholic as they were in a video game, and tingled slightly as it followed the meal. Rounding off the dinner was a wonderful dessert cake that Soul decided had looked amazing.

"Speaking of the hotel room," Soul continued, "Why do we keep renting hotel rooms. We should buy a house on one of the older floors, it would be nice. Why haven't we done that yet?"

"Because we've always been out on the front lines, we've had no time for relaxation."

It was true, they never had time to actually sit back and relax. This little dinner was the most relaxing thing Maka had done since floor 6 when they'd played a few games of basketball at a court in a floor 6 town. The front had never been without the DWMA students for anything longer than two or three days, and there was never any time to take a break, it was always time to grind a little more, get that little bit of extra experience, level up a skill, or defeat an annoying monster that had been waylaying travelers.

It was Soul's turn to warm his insides with the wine, "Well, we could always take a break from the front. We could buy a house, stay there for a bit, then go back to the front. And if we ever need to take a little break, we could always go back to our house and relax for a while. We would no longer need to spend money to rent a hotel room, and the house would be larger and more comfortable than any hotel room could ever. And you remember that hotel from a few months back, the one that had rats in the beds and cockroaches crawling all over the bathroom, we wouldn't have to deal with that ever again."

The waiter showed up at their table with the bill, placing it down in the middle of Maka and Soul. Maka reached instinctively for the bill, until Soul swiped it right out from underneath her hand.

"Nope, I'm treating you to this, so enjoy it."

If he was expecting her to argue, Soul was sorely disappointed. She just shrugged and let him put his Col in the bill, not even bothering to wonder how much the dinner actually was. Soul smiled and returned the bill to the waiter, who promptly left to try and tally up the tab.

"How long has it been since we became partners, Maka?" Soul asked.

"Years now, especially including this little shindig into Aincrad."

"Hmm. It's really been that long, dang. The time really passes by you, doesn't it."

Maka agreed politely.

They finished off the wine and wandered back outside, across the street another fight was breaking out in the alehouse. The sounds of splintering chairs and breaking bones could be heard from the other side of the street where Soul and Maka were. Soul hit a few buttons on his menu, and a sword materialized next to his hip.

"Just in case," he whispered to Maka, "just in case." She nodded, then stuck her arm through his, and they started walking off together.

They'd gone around five steps when someone from the alehouse whistled and stuck his head out the door.

"Hey, girlie, where are ya goin'? The party is all over here, there's no reason to hang out with that white haired freak. He's puny."

Soul turned around and saw a half-naked guy hanging on the doorstop of the alehouse. The man only had shorts on, revealing a six pack and muscles all over. Clearly the man thought that those muscles were enough to influence any girl to go with him, but Maka was different. She looked at the guy for a whole five seconds before turning up her nose like he was something disgusting that had crawled onto her shoe.

"I think I'll take the guy who's small in stature over the guy with two brain cells to his name." Maka called out to the guy. "And more than likely two inches as well."

The man may have let the brain cell comment pass by, it wasn't something he was internally worried about. But the second Maka mentioned a more… personal… matter, his fighting blood started raging.

"You really think that all this-" he gestured to his arms and chest, "only has two inches down below? You must be the one with two brain cells, cause all this muscle means I've got testosterone to spare."

Soul sniggered, and finally joined in the conversation. "If you had any brain cells at all, or maybe went to school, you'd know that testosterone supplements shrink your dick, not grow it. First the muscles come, then the dick goes, and finally your IQ is reduced to something along the lines of a stick of deodorant. You're somewhere along the lines of the third stage of that sequence. If this was a puzzle game, you'd be screwed from the beginning."

The man turned on Soul, "You wanna go, shrimp?" he asked, "you and me, right here, right now?"

Soul cracked his knuckles and neck in turn, "Sure. I'll give you the duel invite. To the yellow bar? Or red?"

It seemed like the man really wanted to be insulted today, "Red," he growled, "And you're going to see red faster than you can even say sorry."

The screen for a duel invite appeared in front of the man, a sword appeared at his waist as he accepted it, it wasn't anything fancy, but it did look high level. The sword seemed to be hilt heavy, allowing for faster blows, but lacked any substance anywhere else… it really was just a general sword. Soul pulled out his own blade, letting it shine in the moonlight.

"Sweet, let's get going." Soul told the man cheerfully. A duel counter appeared above the two of them, and the alehouse occupants left their brawl to go outside and start placing bets. Maka merely smiled.

The man pulled out his blade and swung it around in front of him and Soul saw that he may have underestimated the man. The blade was blood red, a fatal sign, and it was supremely sharp and heavy. Soul hesitated and the man smiled, showing his level.

It was one above Soul's.

"You just made a mistake, kid." The man growled again, "I live on the front of this game, there's hardly anybody from the lower levels that can stand against me. Let alone, a small, puny, weak, idiotic kid who doesn't know when to give up.

Soul let his own level show towards the crowd and gasps went through them all. It was going to be a very badass fight, two high level warriors going at it.

"I think that the fight's pretty fair." Soul said back, "Good thing I just got back from the front, that boss battle was pretty tough, and the fight right after was tougher, I almost had to try. Maybe I'll have to try against you."

The time slowly wound down.

23

22

21

The mudslinging and trash talking continued from both sides, each man giving out just as much as he took.

8

7

6

The trash talking stopped, it was focusing time.

3

2

1

BEGIN

The man launched towards Soul like he just bounced off of a spring or had discovered a spider in his shorts. His sword was raised out in a jab that would've taken off Soul's head if not for Soul's speedy reaction times. Soul dropped low to the ground, letting the blade travel over his head.

Soul's leg shot out, trying to trip the man, but he jumped and sailed over the leg, spinning once he hit the ground to face Soul again.

This time he took his time, letting Soul get up from the ground before slowly circling Soul and sizing him up. Soul held himself comfortably, letting the sword hang loosely in his hand, but ready for anything. It was Soul's turn to start the combat.

He slowly walked forward, bringing his sword up to the ready position in front of his body, and then swung at the man's head.

The man blocked it and tried to riposte with a jab, but Soul sidestepped and kicked out flatfooted at the man's knees. The foot landed and knocked the man off balance, Soul tried to capitalize on it. He launched out an elbow towards the man's chest, sword too unwieldy for the speed he wanted.

The elbow connected and launched the man back, driving his HP down partway. The man shook it off and readied himself again. Then picked up a rock from where it was lying in the street and launched it towards Soul's face. Soul saw the projectile coming a mile away, and slashed through it with his sword, but the spray of dirt from the rock got in Soul's eyes, making them water. He blinked the tears out of his eyes, but that was enough of an opening for Soul's opponent.

Soul's enemy rushed in with a killer upwards slash, Soul could hardly see it coming, but he partially dodged it. The sword clipped Soul along his left arm as Soul dodged to the right. The pain was more cold than sting, but Soul could feel his HP go down by a significant amount.

It dropped into the yellow and Soul knew he'd need to play more defensively. His opponent, on the other hand, saw his opening as Soul backed off. He pressed his advantage hard, going into a flurry of blows that didn't relent. Soul was forced even further back as he was hard pressed to merely retreat while blocking every strike.

But the man couldn't keep the momentum, and Soul finally stopped him in his tracks. The man overextended, reaching for a swing, and Soul ducked underneath. When he came up, he was on the other side of the man and his sword was through the man's gullet.

The man spat out some code as the sword pierced his lungs, splicing ribs to reach them. His HP dropped drastically into the red, giving Soul the match.

The duel ended with everybody's, save for Maka's, jaws dropped into the ground. It was a match they had never seen before, played out at a speed rivaling those of gods. It was like the swords were more of an extension of an arm than a metal tool.

The man relaxed and sheathed his own blade, pulling out a healing item and using it to restore his health. "Good fight," he mumbled under his breath, "Can't wait to fight with you on the front."

Soul relaxed and sheathed his sword, letting the sword go back into his inventory, and walked over to Maka. He offered his arm and she accepted, and they walked back to their hotel, food in their stomachs and a warm feeling that came from a defeated enemy.


	25. A search for Mama

"You did say that she was going to be there?" Kid asked the little child npc in front of him. The npc nodded and pointed once again to the forest. The forest itself was dark and sinister, completely darkened from the outside view Kid had of it. Liz and Patty didn't look to hyped about going into there on their own, but if it would sooth Tsubaki if they found Mama again, they'd do it. Kid looked right into the forest and saw a pinprick of light that was where Mama was supposed to be.

They had found Mama's "Child" at another village to the north that several players had pushed to the night before, and the child directed them to where Mama was supposed to be. After a quick discussion with his weapons, Kid decided that they would clear the way to Mama, go get Tsubaki, then see what all the fuss was about in Tsubaki's mind. They had seen a few powerful enemies from the edge of the forest, but nothing that they couldn't handle.

Kid nodded, "Alright, Liz, Patty, let's go. Let's kick some butt." His two weapons nodded in silence and they strode off into the darkness of the forest. The child stayed there for a moment, looking on in the bemused silence only an npc could, then walked back to the nearby town like his programming insisted.

The forest's darkness seemed to lighten up as they entered in, Kid looked back at where the child was, and once the little one was out of sight he nodded to Liz and Patty. They understood in an instant, and then jumped straight in the air to come down as Kid's dual weapons. Kid nabbed them out of the thin air and spun them a few times just to get the feeling for the balance and weight.

"Kid, please stop, I'm gonna puke." Liz said from her gun form. Kid stopped, didn't want his weapon throwing up in the middle of battle.

"Sorry, Liz. Let's go."

And he ran right into the darkness. It seemed to be a straight shot towards where Mama would be, but trees and rocks loomed suddenly out of nowhere to force Kid off to the side of his path. It was a twisting and turning approach, which was punctuated by the sudden arrival of different monsters. None of which were too high of a level that Kid was forced to be cautious, he dispatched them with symmetric style.

Simple tactics were all that Kid needed against those monsters, retreat, fire, retreat, dodge, repeat. The Artificial Intelligence units for the monsters were very exploitable, and this tactic left them wide open to attack while Kid was never going to be hit. In fact, Kid wondered, why didn't Kayaba provide a higher programming budget for those enemies. All they would ever amount to was steel fodder. Even a level one could take these monsters out, albeit after a long period of time to amount for the fact that the level one would do next to no damage.

"I expected better from you, Kayaba." Kid whispered silently. In his hand, he felt Liz look up at him in her corpeal state.

"What was that, Kid?" She asked.

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking to myself about some stuff."

Another enemy, Kid went right back into rinse and repeat mode. Retreat, fire, retreat, dodge, repeat. It was almost too easy.

 _I wonder if Kayaba planned this out to make a player feel comfortable just traipsing through this forest,_ Kid thought, _I should be more careful. There could be traps ahead._

As if his words were attached to the psyche of the universe, out of nowhere came a massive skeleton. It had to be the skeleton of an animal, it was moving along on all fours and had some sort of tusks coming out of its skull, but it charged down Kid. Kid jumped back and slid a few feet on the flat of his soles before coming to a full stop. He pointed both guns at the creature, but stopped as he saw the player mark above its head. He held his fire for a second, which let the thing slash with its tusks, and forced Kid to roll out of the way of the lethal bone.

"Hold up, Valentine." A voice called out from the edge of Kid's view. A shadow walked into the sunlight of Kid's area, revealing himself. "That's a player, not a monster."

Kid looked towards the shadow and saw it to belong to a middle aged man with a brown beard. The man wasn't too old, still couldn't have been over thirty, but definitely didn't look like somebody who'd be playing a VRMMO. The man whistled for the skeleton creature to stop, but still it didn't stand down.

It launched itself at Kid again, knocking massive dirt clods in the air with its tusks, and Kid only barely managed to avoid it. He raised Liz and Patty, ready to fire if that thing disobeyed the man's orders again. The movement didn't escape the man's vision, and he called out to Kid.

"Don't hurt her, she thinks that you're a monster! Don't fire!"

Like that was part of Kid's plan. He'd only fire if that thing attacked him again. The man was holding himself like he was the skeleton's master, and monsters that had the player mark would be companions, but no companion would disobey a direct order from a master. His mind blasted in at over a hundred miles an hour, thinking of all the possible situations, there were none that would cause a companion to completely disobey their master's direct orders.

Too bad, it ran again.

Kid sighed and sidestepped the mindless charge, fluidly moving past the tusks, and opened fire on the back of the skeleton. Bullets pinged off of the bones, and the HP of the creature dropped quite a bit, it clearly wasn't leveled up as much as it should have been.

The man screamed like the bullets were ricocheting off of his own body, "NO! Valentine, No! Stop, you bastard, stop! She didn't hurt anyone, let alone you!"

"Like I can stop her!" Kid shouted back, "Control your companion!"

"I'm trying!"

With its HP dropped by half, the skeletal animal shook off its shock and seemed to explode in fury. Its bones clacked and it rushed at Kid, eager to see his data spilled across the ground. Kid dodged that rush with almost contempt, and then unloaded Liz and Patty again, seeing sparks fly and bones get gouged.

"Damn it!" The man screamed and drew his blade. He rushed at Kid while Kid was distracted with his pet and slashed downwards at him. The blade cut right into Kid's right shoulder, shearing through the trapezius muscle and stopping at his collarbone. Kid felt the steel bite into him, more cold than anything due to his adrenaline, but his HP dropped by a massive amount. It must have been some sort of a critical hit.

Kid made sure to finish off the pet before turning to face the master, a mistake. The man slashed again at Kid, and scored another random luck critical hit. Kid flinched at this hit, feeling his HP drop past the sixty percent marker. "Kid, are you okay?" Patty said from her weapon form. She sounded extremely concerned for her Meister, and Kid felt like a paternal protection awake inside of him for the innocent Patty. He spat out a little bit of data blood, "Yeah, I'm okay, I can take this little poser."

The next slash was a downwards curving stroke at Kid's skull. He caught it with the edge of Liz and Patty's barrels, crossing the two so that he had a greater leverage against the man's sword. With a swift motion, Kid flipped Liz and Patty in his hands so that the man would be launched back off balance, and started firing on the man. In went five bullets from each gun, Liz and Patty pounding their souls through the man's body in physical form. The man staggered back.

"You killed Valentine!" He shouted. Kid noticed that the player indicator above the man had turned to an orange-ish red color as the man attacked him.

The man recovered from his stagger quickly, and drove himself at kid, scoring several fast hits before Kid could recover and use his superior mobility to control the battle. At this point, with all the critical hits this man kept scoring (Must have been a rage factor in the blade he was using), Kid's HP was in the red and depleting fast from cuts leaking their data.

"Kid, be careful." Liz said, "You're going to bleed out in around a minute if you don't get a healing item out. And you won't take any more hits from that sword."

"I got it, Liz. He's not getting any more hits on me."

Kid ran off to the side of the man, shooting the whole time. The man twisted his body and used his sword to deflect the shots, but several got through to hit his chest. Kid felt the player indicator above his head turn to orange as the man's HP dropped further, indicating his willingness to harm other players. It didn't take long before Kid ran out of room to run and was forced to double back, giving an opening for the man to strike.

The sword was a blur in the air, a steel flash more than anything, but Kid caught the sword on Liz's barrel and unloaded Patty's clip into the man's sternum. He twisted and slammed his foot into the man's chin, knocking him away, and followed up with a direct punch to the man's stomach. The punch would have been normal, if Kid wasn't holding a gun. Patty's barrel dug right into the man's soft skin, and Kid fired again.

The man slid a few meters before being able to spin on the ground and return to his feet. He picked up a rock and threw it at Kid. Kid shot the rock out of the air, but not before it got close to his head.

The fragments and dust hit him in his eyes, blinding Kid for a moment as tears rushed into his eyes.

"Die!"

"NO, KID!"

While Kid couldn't see the man had rushed forwards with his sword ready to finish Kid off. It was an upwards slash that would have progressed through the rib cage of Kid's torso to strike the heart and lungs. Until something got in the way.

Kid wiped the tears out of his eyes to see Patty standing in front of him. A sword through her own heart. He saw her HP in the corner of his H.U.D. drop by an amount rivaling that of a boss. The man twisted his sword while it was still inside her and drove it out sideways, dividing Patty's body into two halves at the heart.

"Kid." She whispered as she fell down into the dirt. Data streaming endlessly from the wound.

The man looked confused that there was a human other than Kid that his sword pierced. He looked at the blade in disgust.

"YOU DAMN ASSHOLE, I'LL FINISH YOU OFF!"

From Kid's other hand erupted the second half to the pair that was the Thompson sisters. Liz flew into existence with her own sword out and driving towards the man. Kid only got a short glimpse before she had gone past him, but he could see tears streaming across her face.

The sword pierced through the man's gut and Liz drove it all the way in to the hilt.

"You… you're gone." She said to him, pushing him off his sword as the man dissolved into data.

Her player indicator turned red, the mark of a player killer, and Liz dropped her sword and sank to her knees.

"No… Patty." Liz cradled Patty's head in her arms, "Don't go. How will we keep fighting? I can't fight without you at my side."

Patty coughed up data-blood onto her hand. "You can do it." A weak smile crossed her lips, "You're strong, Sis. You've got a good chance of making it out. You can do it." She turned to Kid, "Same with you, Kid. You've done so much for Liz and I, I'm glad I could repay the debt."

And she disappeared. Liz stared at the hands that had held her sister's head a second before.

"NO!" She cried out, "NO. NO. NO. NO. It isn't, it can't. He couldn't. There can't be-. Damn it."

Kid stared at the ground where Patty had lain. "I… I'm so sorry. Patty."

* * *

Tsubaki was back at the hotel room when Soul and Maka got back from their date, "How'd it go, guys?"

Maka kissed Soul on his cheek, "Great. It was amazing."


	26. Grief

"So has Kid gotten back yet?" Maka asked Crona. Crona shook his head and shrugged; Kid had left with Liz and Patty before Maka and Soul had gone on their date, it was weird that they hadn't gotten back yet. He did say that it shouldn't take too long.

"We haven't heard anything from him yet. He was going out with Liz and Patty to grind some experience and Col, I would've thought that he should be back by now, though."

"Hmm, I wonder if-" Soul's phrase was cut off by a knock on the door behind him. He turned around and opened it up, standing in the hallway was a player in full battle armor. "Are you friends of a player named Kid?" He asked before Soul could say anything. Soul nodded.

"You- you're going to need to come with me."

He led them out of the hotel and into the street. Lying in the middle of the street, completely in view of a crowd of people, was Kid. He was spattered with data-blood and his player marker was yellow-orange. There was dirt and mud splattered all across his body and it looked like he didn't even care that the splattering was unsymmetrical. He had his sword in its sheath, but it was the only thing that looked clean, like he'd been relying on another weapon.

Sitting in the dirt next to him was Liz. She had dust and dirt as well caking her face, but tears were constantly tracing tracks through the dirt. Above her head, her player mark hung crimson, like blood.

Maka stared at the sickly sight, then ran over to her friend's side.

"KID! LIZ! Are you okay?"

Liz nodded weakly, "Yeak, Kid and I are fine." She said in a voice that sounded like she'd gargled nails for three weeks straight.

"But… Where's Patty?" Tsubaki asked as she walked up. At these words, Liz began shaking even more and tears seemed to flow endlessly from her eyes. She curled herself up and fell to her side. Tsubaki fell silent.

From the ground, Kid spoke up in a raspy voice. "Patty... didn't make it back with us." Tears streamed out of his eyes, "There was this other player there. His companion animal attacked us and I fought back against it. In killing it, the player attacked me. He was about to kill me when Patty jumped in the way to stop it, and she was hit instead of me. The cut was devastating, it… was fatal."

Everyone's eyes fell. Maka's began stinging, salty tears making their way to the surface.

Nobody could've imagined Patty wouldn't make it. She was just too cheerful, too… innocent. The cute, adorable, dork of the group who could always s bring a smile to the gloomiest of faces when they saw her. How could she be gone?

Crona stepped forwards, the bulge of Ragnarok on his neck throbbing.

"She's gone." He said with a somber sense of finality. "Get up and we'll go honor her with a funeral. You can't remember her like this, it's just not what she would've wanted. I think, I don't know how to deal with this the same as you."

Soul nodded, "No, you're right. She was cheerful. Fun. Always happy."

With each word, another tear dripped out of Liz's eyes, and Kid shook a little bit.

The people surrounding the small group started to dissipate as they went their separate ways. Soul and the others remained together for hours, standing over Kid and Liz comfortingly, grieving in their own ways.

Tears were present the whole time. Nobody could escape the sorrow of the loss of Patty.

Once there were no more tears left to cry, they helped Kid and Liz to their feet and walked them inside the hotel. None of the NPCs bothered them as they helped their two grief stricken friends to their room.

The sorrow had hit everyone like a tour bus, but none so hard as Liz and Kid. While everyone else mourned and dealt with it in their own ways, Kid and Liz went into a shock, only moving to go to Patty's funeral. Kid slept pretty much all day in a perfectly symmetrical bed, and Liz merely sat on the couch, doing nothing.

This went on for months.

 **A/N:** You all probably hate me for killing Patty. And believe me, I hated killing her. It felt really wrong and dirty for me to do that because of how innocent and cute she was. I feel bad for killing her, but the story must go on. As always, write how you feel the story is going in the comments, give me as harsh criticism as you want (I love hearing criticism, it means that I can do better), and I'll see you in the next chapter. Dlahm out.


	27. Reactions

Five more floors were beaten before Kirito heard the news, Liz had committed suicide.

Ever since Patty's death, Liz had been much more distant and even untouchable. Understandable, she had lost her only sister, the one who's been with her for years and had always stayed by her side through thick and thin. It would have been devastating to lose somebody that close, especially if they'd never been apart.

The news came to Kirito in the form of a message crystal with Soul's face on some sort of hologram above it. Kirito had been relaxing in a bar with a nice non-alchoholic drink when the crystal arrived in his inventory, he pulled it out the second he saw it and activated the message right away. When he saw the expression on Soul's face, Kirito knew that something was really wrong.

"Kirito," Soul had started, "I have some really unfortunate news. I know that you don't know us that well, I don't even know if you'd consider us as friends, but I do know that you cared enough about us to help us out those critical first few days. But, there's been horrible mistakes. Patty… she passed away a few months ago while saving Kid's life. We mourned her, had a small funeral, rested, and then tried to move on. But Liz and Kid didn't even get up from the spot they had occupied when they originally came home with the news. I have no clue what happened, but two days ago Liz disappeared for an hour and then came back with a severe self-inflicted poison status. She died in minutes. Kid, who was so close to getting up and doing something, was driven back into a near vegetable state. At first we just wanted to have another quiet funeral, but then BlackStar mentioned that you may want to come. The funeral will be in two days on floor five where we buried Patty. Liz will be remembered next to her sister. You can come if you want, it's behind the starting town."

Liz, Liz and Patty. The two Thompson sisters… gone.

Kirito was silent for a moment, then drained his drink, picked up the glass, and slammed it down on the crystal. The crystal dissolved into data shards, the picture of Soul falling away into nothingness.

The other bargoers looked at Kirito, but the black clad beater didn't care. He merely tossed a col on the bar counter and walked away.

Liz and Patty gone.

It was a real shame. A right nasty slap to Kirito's face. It was like whatever cruel god of this stupid game… oh wait, Kayaba, had taken all of Kirito's efforts at actually being kind to the group of DWMA students, spat on them, ripped them up, and shoved them back into Kirito's face saying "There, that's what you get for trying to keep people alive."

Kirito walked outside, darkness obscuring most of the main defining features of his current floor, and started to walk towards the nearest hotel to get some sleep. The only group Kirito had actually tried to help in those first few days lost two of their happiest and fun members, the kinds of people that keep a group fully together…

"Damn it Kayaba." Kirito whispered, "You… I'm coming for you. Eventually."

 **A/N:** sorry that it's a short chapter. I just want to let the sadness sink in for a bit.


	28. Death

Death looked down at the comatose body of his son, Death the Kid, and calmed his nerves. Kid was in the hospital room, and the electrocardiogram's steady beating was a constant presence. Death had hardly left his son's side while his son was in the hospital, and while the electrocardiogram's beeping may have increased drastically several times, it never went flat.

The beeping had been slow for months now.

"C'mon, Kid, don't give up." Death whispered to Kid's body, "You're stronger than that."

From the entrance of the room, the door creaked open and Stein walked in. "Death, you're needed at the DWMA, there's been an attack on a student. She's in the nurse's office right now with one arm missing and severe blood loss. We've caught the criminal; he's awaiting your judgement."

"Do what you will with him. He's under your jurisdiction, Stein."

Stein looked like Christmas came early that year, "You're saying I can do whatever I want with him?"

Death nodded.

He practically ran out of the room, ecstatic because he had a new test subject. Death went back to looking at his son's body. At the door, Stein paused, "Death?" Death looked back to Stein.

"Yes, Stein?"

"You need to trust your son. He's been trained as a Shinigami. There's every chance that he'd get out of the game. You won't help anything by standing by his side all day long. You need to continue to keep this city alive, otherwise what will Kid come back to? A ruined city filled with crime and horrors? You've trained your son as best you can, now trust in how you've trained him."

Death rested a hand on Kid's face. It was peaceful in sleep, without the strain of the world to be on him. But inside, Death knew, was a raging storm of pain and shock. Kid had to have been there when the electrocardiograms for both Liz and Patty went flat line, he'd be feeling the strain of that full force. Maybe that was why his beat had been slowed, he'd be feeling all that pressure.

"You're right, Stein." Death said, "I'll deal with that criminal instead."

Stein looked genuinely sad at those words. "Are you sure, Lord Death? I can take care of his punishment better than most others in the entire DWMA, and he almost killed one of our students, are you sure that I can't do a little experimenting on his mind to figure out what made him do what he did?"

The look on Death's face was clear, he was ready to rejoin society, "Yes. I'm sure that I can take care of his punishment. Who was the student that he injured?" Death started walking out of the hospital room with Stein following.

"Suzanne Collins. She is a meister in one of the younger years here. The man attempted to remove her head from her shoulders, but her weapon was nearby and leapt to her defense. Instead of taking off her head, he took off her arm. She screamed at that point, and the man tried to silence her once again, but the weapon tackled him and detained him. Our security was there in seconds after the scream, and were able to help detain the criminal."

"Good," Death said, "I want all of our security forces on double alert for the next week, we don't want anything else like this happen. I will interrogate the man personally, have you gotten any information from him?"

Stein shrugged, "Not even his name."

The two of them passed by another room, this one holding several other DWMA students and other comatose children, including Maka. Spirit was, of course, at her side weeping. He was staring intently through the tears at Maka's electrocardiogram, as if watching it would give Maka a better chance of survival. Death looked at Spirit for a moment, but kept walking, he knew what Spirit was like. Spirit would never leave his daughter's side like this, there was no way. Odds are that Death would be out a death scythe for however long the group would be in the game.

However many years that would take until whichever brave soul eliminated the last obstacle standing in their way.

Of course it would take years, it wouldn't be anything less knowing Kayaba. Death sighed inwardly, Kid would have to fend for himself. It took all of Death's patience to last through this, he could hardly imagine how the other parents felt. Work would take his mind off of his son for a little bit.

"Let's see what we have back at the DWMA," he told Stein. Stein smiled, he knew this would work. Death always cared for his students.


	29. Back On Track

Soul's heart was racing, he could feel it beating a dubstep deep in his chest, almost feeling like his ribs would crack or break from the inside out because of the rapid slams in his chest. He never felt like this before when fighting monsters or players, but that was when he had Kid, Liz, and Patty at his back. Now… Liz, gone. Patty, gone. Kid, as good as dead for all he was currently capable of doing.

Four skeleton warriors, clad in an armor that was as pale white as bone, stood in front of Soul. One of which held a cleaver larger than Soul's entire arm while the others had axes or a mace.

Maka stood to Soul's right, a determined look on her face, and a sword held defiantly in her right hand. Ready to fight.

"Stay strong, Soul. We can take them." Maka whispered, "Just stay calm."

There was a reason that Maka was saying that. Soul's fights recently had been sporadic, dangerous. He hadn't fought under reason, it was just impossible to his current state. It was like the loss of his fighting buddies had driven him towards a more instinctive fighting style.

Soul gripped his sword tightly. "I've got it, Maka. I'm under control. This won't be like that golem two floors ago."

He heard Maka groan under her breath, that memory was still kind of painful just thinking about it. "You had to bring that one up, Soul? I was watching you get your butt smacked around, it hurt just watching you struggle to kill it."

"Yeah," Soul said, "That was embarrassing. Definitely not cool."

The skeletons in front of the meister and weapon were from a dungeon the pair had raided a couple of hours ago, they must have followed Soul and Maka into the next dungeon they went into. It must've been some sort of an Agro glitch. The dungeon Maka and Soul were currently in was a spacious cluster of catacombs creating a labyrinth underneath the surface of the floor, they had gotten lost in it the last time they raided it for experience and gold.

The four skeletons spread out along the dungeon hallway, readying their weapons as Soul and Maka held their own steel up. Soul had spent countless hours memorizing all the monster's A.I. attack patterns, and he knew it would take around six and a half seconds for the Agro of the monsters to overwhelm their caution restraints. Therefore, Soul and Maka both backed up slowly during that six seconds, letting the skeletons spread themselves out before their Agro overwhelms the caution. The farther apart the skeletons were, the better for Maka and Soul, they would have room to breath when dealing with the skeletons.

Soul counted down the time in his head, and the split second before it timed out, he rushed into the middle of the group of skeletons with a headache making battle cry.

"KYAAAH!" He shouted as he charged down the middle skeleton, one with an axe. The skeleton held up its axe in front of its rib cage in a defensive stance, and the skeletons on either side of it swiped at Soul.

Soul dodged the first two weapons, slashed at the guarding skeleton's leg, and then spun quickly to deflect another weapon off his own blade.

Sparks flew off of Soul's sword as he deflected the cleaver off of his blade. "You're going to have to try better than that!" Soul spat out through grit teeth as he used his sword to fling the monster's weapon sideways. The skeleton stumbled backwards, and Soul plunged his sword into the monster, slicing it in half.

The two halves of the skeleton fell to the ground and immediately started to pull themselves together. Soul had experienced this before, enemies that don't die from critical wounds, and instead would die from HP loss. It was common among undead enemies in the game.

Soul took a quick glance at Maka, she was standing back, letting him do most of the work unless he got in trouble. This was training for him, not her, she wouldn't fight his battles.

The skeleton on the far left rushed at Soul, driving its axe in a killer arc of steel. Soul ducked under the white arc and shoulder bashed the skeleton in its ribs.

Soul jumped up, kicking as he went, and knocked the mandible off of the skeleton. The skeleton looked at him with a face like 'what the hell man?' and slashed at him.

The blade whizzed right past Soul's face, he could see it nick his hair as it went by. He flinched as a lock of white hair was detached from the main spiky mass and paid for the flinch. A skeleton on his left smashed in his cheekbone with a powerful punch. The hilt of the skeleton's blade rammed into Soul's face and he could taste his data-blood in his mouth.

Soul retreated carefully, taking stock of the situation as he held a hand to his cheek.

There was a skeleton on the ground piecing its two halves back together, gnashing its teeth wildly like it dared Soul to strike it while it was down. Two of the skeletons holding axes were over its body, protecting it while it got together, and the final skeleton was grabbing its jaw to replace it.

"Easy fight." Soul said. "You're all way too easy. Nothing close to me."

This was the first fight in months that felt under control. Soul actually smiled.

He rushed back into the fight, ignoring the stabbing pain in his jaw, and kicked at the skeleton piecing his jaw back in the ribs while deflecting an incoming strike from the other two defending skeletons. The kick connected, slamming the spine of the skeleton out the back, forcefully removing the vertebra. The skeleton had his hp drop through the floor and dissolved into code.

One down, three to go.

Five minutes later, Maka and Soul were continuing on their journey into the dungeon with the dissolved remains of the skeletons behind them. They were on a quest for an NPC which required them to take down a boss that was deep in the dungeon. The quest was relatively easy, according to info given to them by Kid before he went veggie.

"So where are we supposed to go, Maka?" Soul asked her. He was there to train and get back into fighting, she was there to guide him and back him up in case everything went sour.

"Right turn up ahead, should have two more skeletons in that corridor, then a left turn after that. If we take a left instead of a right up here, we'll get taken to a treasure room that's been looted a hundred times over and instead contains a monster." Maka read off of a list she had written down months ago when drilling Kid over how the dungeon quest went.

They hung a right. The two skeletons facing Soul were both holding rapiers in their hands, and waved them around with dexterity.

"I'll take them." Soul said, even though there was really no other way it was going to happen, Maka wasn't there to fight.

Soul swung around his blade, testing the balance like it would've changed in the last ten seconds. Then walked forwards.

The first skeleton lashed out at Soul with a jab like a fencer. Soul turned his blade a quarter to the left and the rapier jab went off to the side. The A.I. of the skeleton, expecting resistance, stumbled forwards and Soul crushed the back end of its skull in with his sword's hilt. The next skeleton fell just as fast, if not faster from a series of blows from the tip of Soul's sword to the base of the blade ending in an upwards swipe that knocked the head off.

Next turn held no monsters for Soul to fight, but a couple of turns after that, and the Meister and Weapon duo were at the boss.

"Think you can handle him?" Maka asked Soul as she sized up the boss. He was a bigger skeleton… real freaking original, Kayaba, real freaking original.

"He's a bigger version of a skeleton that's missing the one bone that matters," Soul told her, at ease with his blade relaxed at his side, "I can handle him with both eyes shut and both arms gone."

There was more to the big skeleton than there was to the smaller ones, he had some armor, unlike his smaller counterparts, and a much larger weapon. The armor was a standard Roman centurion's helmet, and the big weapon was a gladius larger than Soul's whole body.

Too easy for Soul. He eliminated the monster with almost contempt. It didn't even last a minute.

They walked home a little happier, a lot richer from the quest rewards, and with confidence and pride intact for Soul. This was the first quest since Kid had lost his sanity that he'd not gotten his white haired butt handed to him. His cool-ness was slowly starting to come back.

 **A/N: I'm sorry about my uploading schedule. Life has been in the way, but my schedule is back on and i'm going to upload every week on Wednesday. I'm sorry about all the sad chapters, i cried too when I wrote it, and I will accept all the hate that's going to be flung my way. However, the blue period is over (maybe, you'll never know *evil author laugh*), and I want to know what your thoughts on the current chapters are. Leave a comment to help me out, tell me what I missed (I love to hear that, and it is great to learn from it). And as always, Have Yourselves A Great Day.**


	30. Lisbeth

"So how are you feeling about that quest, Soul?" Maka asked innocently. Soul smiled, just like he thought somebody who was cool should do with just the right amount of pause before speaking his own mind.

"I felt pretty good, Maka." Soul showed off his pointed teeth. "There's definitely something in my fighting style that I felt that I had been missing. I think I got it back."

"And what would that 'thing' be?"

Soul thought for a moment. "That would be my conviction in fighting." He told her in all seriousness. "When Liz and Patty passed, I stopped wanting to fight, like there was no more use to fighting. We were so used to fighting together, as a team, that it just felt wrong to fight without them. But they're in a better place now, much better than this virtual hell." He gestured at the admittedly beautiful scenery that was hiding a prison.

The Meister nodded solemnly, "That's good, Soul. That's really good to hear. Now let's get back to the hotel and report what we've gotten done, I'm pretty sure that the others are going to like what we have to say."

Back at the hotel that they had rented a room in, Maka and Soul walked right into a conversation that Crona was in with some sort of pink haired girl with a waitress' skirt.

"So the sword that I'm going to need is going to be around five feet long and extra heavy. I use a sword like that in the real world, so it's good to have the feel of a blade translate into the game. Do you think that you can do it?"

The waitress-looking pink haired girl nodded cheerfully, "'Course, Crona. I can fix that up for you. What's the occasion?

"My old sword is wearing down."

"I've got you, then."

"Thanks, Lis. I have complete confidence in your skills in weapons."

Maka and Soul walked farther into the room, "Hey, Crona," Soul said, "Who's this?"

Crona looked at Maka and Soul, and smiled a bit. "This is Lisbeth. She's a blacksmith that I met out on a dungeon raid earlier today. She was in a spot of trouble, and I got her out of it."

Lisbeth looked at Maka and Soul and smiled. Soul examined her closely. She was pretty, and seemed to be very cheerful, but there was something off about her eyes. Her eyes didn't reflect the smile as well as they should. The smile didn't reach her eyes with the happiness she should've been feeling. There was one explanation.

"Lisbeth," Soul said, "Who did you lose?"

The pink hair bounced a little as Lis inwardly felt herself get shot, and outwardly flinched at the words. "Wh- what do you mean?" She asked a little shakily. She tried to regain her confidence and cheerful façade, but inwardly kicked herself as she could feel the mask slipping.

"Those aren't the eyes of somebody as cheerful as you are acting. Something happened today, and since we're in a game of daily death, I can imagine that you lost somebody. Who did you lose?"

Lis sighed and ducked her head shamefully. "I lost my guild." She said bitterly, biting back tears. "I lost my friends."

Soul nodded, "I'm so sorry for you, Lisbeth. We know how you feel right now, and there's nothing that can prevent you from feeling sad. Honor their deaths with your tears, and continuing on what they did."

She nodded, no longer biting back tears, but letting them flow on her cheeks and onto her hoop skirt. "I understand."

The sound of a door opening interjected Lisbeth's sadness. "Did I hear somebody say Liz?" Kid said from the doorway. The Shinigami was deadly pale and skin and bones. Despite there being no need to eat in the game, it looked like he had been starving himself to death. His cheekbones were excruciatingly pronounced, and his skin was hanging off of him like his father's cloak.

"Did I hear somebody say Liz?" He repeated.

Lisbeth looked up. "That's me. My name is Lisbeth, with an S, not a Z."

Kid looked at Lisbeth with sunken eyes. Soul could see that the whites of his eyes had yellowed slightly and the black in his pupils was flat instead of lively. "Liz was my friend."

Lisbeth looked to Crona for guidance, Crona merely wiped away a tear. "She was a friend to all of us, Kid. It's been hard on everybody." He looked at the blacksmith, "Liz was who we had lost recently. Liz and Patty Thompson, the Thompson sisters. Here… come with me."

He led her a few feet away and shut a door to block out the sound so that Kid wouldn't have to endure the memories.

"Patty and Liz were sisters, close friends since their births. They grew up together on the streets, using their wits to fight. Kid is the son of Lord Death of Death City… the Shinigami, and he found Liz and Patty and took them in. They were good friends, very good friends. And then Patty died in here trying to save Kid's life, and Liz killed herself soon afterwards with poison in her grief. Kid's never been the same. For months he's shut himself away in his room and not come out at all, not even to eat. He could've died and there would've been no difference to how he is right now. I… none of us know how to deal with it. I'm normally the one who has problems with my identity, but right now I've been the only one who's been stable enough to fight and earn gold. Soul hasn't fought at his full since Kid went into his state, and Maka is reliant on Soul a lot more than she realizes."

Crona looked right at Lis. When he had met her earlier today, she had been trying to stave off an attack while crying herself a river. He had stepped in and defeated the monster with ease, and Lis collapsed into tears. When he asked what was wrong, she had mumbled something about weakness, and stood up, cheering up almost instantly. Crona could feel Ragnarok trying to tell him she was lying, but he chose not to listen and instead invited her back to the hotel to have a drink and something to eat.

Of course it ended up like this. Kid finally came out to the word "liz". An idea struck Crona. "Hey… Lisbeth? Why don't you hang out here for a bit. This is the first time we've seen Kid for months, maybe you'd be a difference to him. Maybe you'd be a difference."

Lis looked at Crona, he was innocent of anything hostile. "Yeah… okay."


	31. Deliberations

After that, Lisbeth stopped by several times a week. The first time she stopped by after then, Kid was still mostly comatose. She had to stand right next to his lying place (the cooler in his room, he liked the breeze… it was very symmetrical) and shake him to get him up. But once he woke up, he actually came to life.

Liz would take to Kid about life outside of the game, monsters to fight, stuff to do in the game and out, and friends all the time. And a week after she hung out, Kid went outside for the first time in months. He and Liz went down to a lower floor and enjoyed themselves on a beach boardwalk that players had made a few months ago.

She would visit every couple of days, and pretty soon the DWMA crew knew her like they'd been friends for years. They even went on a couple of quests together, all super easy ones in order to test Kid, of course.

"What did you think of that one, Kid?" Maka asked after one of the before mentioned quests. Kid shrugged and flicked his sword neatly out of its sheath.

"That was more than a bit easy. Why do we keep doing quests that are boring. The monsters all die in one hit to us, the boss is predictable and foolish, and the traps are one dimensional and require the easiest checks. It's like you're giving me quests that we did when we had just started playing this game."

"Well," Lisbeth explained patiently to Kid, "it's more along the lines of making sure you are feeling good enough to fight. If you aren't ready for a challenge, then we don't want to give you one."

Kid sighed, "But how will I know unless we try out dungeons that are worth our time and money?"

"We're finding out your limits so we can break them," Soul said cooly, "Shatter them really. We aren't going to figure out your limits just to lightly break them… we want them to be destroyed. If we don't know your limits, we don't know how far to go to break."

"Well when you put it like that-"

Soul began nodding as he thought Kid was about to agree with him.

"-I want to go back to the front lines."

Soul's nodding stopped as he heard Kid's request, "Wait, wait, wait… WHAT!? No way man. No way, they've gone up in floors faster than ever recently. We're way underleveled because we've been hanging around here for so long. We're in no condition to go back to the front lines just yet, there's monsters there that we haven't seen before. We'd be monster food in seconds."

The frown Kid had on was pure disappointment in his companions. "If we don't go, how will we level up? It's going to be impossible to get back to the front lines if we don't power grind with the harder monsters…" Kid blushed as he heard the innuendo he just said.

"Well…" Crona mumbled, "We could visit the monster arena."

That idea did not sit well with anybody of the group. The monster arena was infamous among the players for being a death trap for desperate players. The monster arena was a building on the early floors, staffed by players who apparently hated everything in life. It was a gladiator style arena where one player is trapped to fight a horde of monsters. Whenever a player won, they had gotten such a massive amount of experience, that they could level up several times over and plow through whatever floor they were on. And it was scaling experience too, meaning that you gained experience based on however much you already had. The sad part was that hardly anybody survived, and Kid looked like he was nodding his agreement with Crona's idea.

"NO, NO NO, and in case you didn't hear me the first times, NO!" Maka yelled at Kid, "This is the worst idea I've ever heard. All you can accomplish with it is suicide, and you can do that on your own just fine. Haven't you even heard of all the ways you can die in that god forsaken arena?"

"Beheading, boiling, sawn in half… multiple times, impaled, ravaged, torn to shreds, the list goes on and on." Liz listed off. "Listen to us, Kid, you can't do this. Only one in every fifty players survives the arena, and often it's due to luck. You can't go."

"But the levels I would gain could let me go toe to toe with anybody on the assault team!" Kid argued.

Crona nodded his agreement, "It's our best way to be back in the fight with Kid."

"But we're going to risk too much." Maka countered. The argument went on until the moon was high in the sky and Liz went home. Once everybody had fallen asleep, a shadow slid out of the hotel.

"Best chance." It said.


	32. Arena

"Welcome… to the ARENA!"

The burly man doing the yelling walked towards the stands that surrounded a jungle, creating a gladiator style arena. He gestured for Kid to follow him. His voice was being enhanced by a crystal on his armor, so that he could yell out to the crowd that filled the stands. "Our fighter tonight has given his name as only Kid. Now, I have to ask you, Kid, are you sure you wish to do this?"

Kid looked up at the crowd, who were yelling out and baying for blood. They looked thirsty for crimson liquid to be splattered across the ground, and Kid hesitated. Out of nowhere, somebody in the crowd threw a rock that hit Kid in the back of the head. His HP dropped only a little bit, but the rock stung and the force of the hit made Kid stumble. The crowd laughed and booed at him for hesitating.

Without any more delay, Kid nodded, "Yes, I'm ready." And pulled out his sword.

The announcer nodded and held up his hand, signaling some hidden person. The crowd roared, they knew what was going to happen.

"Well then, Kid, you know that your punishment for loss is death. You know all the rewards for your success. You are ready! Bring out the first wave!"

A couple of guys in the crowd dropped a ladder down, and the burly announcer climbed up to safety. Once up there, he high fived a few of his bros before watching the spectacle of Kid's fight. From deeper in the jungle, Kid heard an inhuman scream. It echoed around the arena for a few seconds before disappearing ominously. Kid felt the hairs on his neck stand on end, and shivers ran up his spine. He missed the familiar weight of Liz and Patty in his hands.

"This one is for Liz and Patty."

Death watched the echocardiogram attached to his son start beeping frantically. In the real world, Kid's body grew sweaty and began shaking underneath his VR helmet. Death rested a hand on his son's head, "What are you doing, Kid? What are you doing?"

Kid waited a clear distance from the jungle with his sword ready. The crowd, sensing the monster stalking its next victim, stopped its cheering and grew silent with anticipation. Kid could feel the silence weighing down on him, judging him, but thankfully no more bricks were flung from the crowd of restless players.

Then it appeared, the monster.

At least ten feet long and a single rope of muscular scales, a giant snake slithered out of the jungle and tasted the air with its tongue to search for its victim. It looked right at Kid, and Kid smiled grimly, "Well then, I guess that you're the first one."

The snake was ugly. That would be the only word to describe it. Despite being ten feet long, it was albino and had spikes on its scales that really didn't complement its looks. The tail flared out at the end, then pointed back in to become another spike (Another weapon, Kid noted). The teeth were as long as Kid's forearm, and Kid saw the faint tinge of venom as the snake hissed.

The snake charged forwards, recognizing Kid as its prey. It was fast, clearing the hundred odd feet between them in less than a second or two, and struck fast. Kid dodged out of the way of the first strike, and the monster's health bars appeared on his HUD.

"I'll take care of you and avenge my weapons, you spineless-" the tail whipped across and swept Kid's feet out from underneath him. Kid got up, cursing himself for the lapse in concentration. He poked at the snake, trying to elicit a response, but the snake didn't take the bait and instead circled him.

A new danger grew in Kid's mind; the body of the snake, it was curling around him. Kid jumped upwards as the snake slammed its body shut, and barely cleared the scales, but now he was on an angry snake's back. The snake's body thrummed underneath, and the head charged at him.

Kid's reactions took over and he rolled underneath the head, slashing as he went with his blade.

"GAH!" The scales on the snake's back were sharper than what they should be, cutting into Kid's skin and driving his Health Points downwards. Kid activated a sword skill that increased his speed for a moment, and jumped away, using it to get more space. Once with more room, and an unwinding snake in front of him, he popped open a health potion and chugged half of it, the HP returned to full. The snake shook its head, spraying some blood from where Kid was able to cut it.

 _HSSSSSSSS!_ It spouted off angrily. It looked more annoyed than injured from the superficial cut Kid gave it. The tail whipped forwards, but Kid parried with the edge of his own blade, giving the snake another cut, this time on its tail. Again the tail whipped forwards, and Kid again parried. A third time the tail came, and this time it didn't strike, instead going wide on purpose and hitting Kid with the muscular part of where the end of the tail met the body.

Kid couldn't block in time, and he was flung into the trunk of a tree. Dazed, he stood up, but the snake was already there to hit him again with its snout. Kid felt the tree behind him shatter as he was driven through the wood and into the arena wall, which was made of solid metal. The breath was driven out of him, and Kid saw his Health drop by a scary amount.

Skills alone wouldn't get him out of this fight, he'd need to get lucky as well to survive, the snake was too high of level.

"HEY, GO KILL A KOBOL!" Kid yelled at the snake, trying to goad it into striking again. The snake reared back, and it charged a second time, but Kid was no longer where it thought he was. The snake slammed its snout into the metal wall, shaking the stands above it and drawing concerned murmurs from the crowd as the metal squealed.

Kid jumped up and brought his sword down on the head of the snake. The sword dug in a little bit before it lost momentum, and Kid had to retreat quickly or get bitten. He saw the health of the snake go down by a good amount, and he noticed that it had started bleeding from the wounds he gave it.

He saw the snake charging again, and ran to the metal wall, causing the snake to back off again in fear of hitting the wall. The snake now opted for the more defensive approach, cornering Kid at the wall. Its body created a half moon, boxing Kid in, and the head weaved back and forth as it slowly closed the circle on him.

The look of defiance that Kid was giving the snake was filled with the hatred he felt towards the game and anything having to do with the devices that took his friend's lives. He kept his sword pointed at the snake's head and showed no fear as it approached (But that didn't keep him from actually feeling afraid, he felt his pants grow wet a little bit as the snake got closer).

"You," his anger at the game grew, "are just numbers!" He took a step towards the snake and planted his right foot in the ground in front of him. "Ones and Zeros that took my friends. I'm beating you!" And Kid went on the offensive, driving himself forwards off of his right foot.

The sword went into the bridge of the nose on the snake, and the snake reared back, driving the sword out of Kid's hands.

Without missing a beat, Kid motioned for his menu and equipped a different blade, causing the one in the snake's head to vanish back into his inventory, and slashed at the stomach of the snake. This was the first major cut, driving deeper than all the rest of them. The sword slashed through the snake's unprotected stomach like butter, leaving a trail of code as it exited.

The snake fell over and vanished, leaving Kid with half his health left. Kid smiled, "Well then, that's finished."

"Yes, so it is." The burly announcer said from his spot in the crowd. All the time that Kid fought, he had been spectating the match and announcing its finer details to the crowd, Kid couldn't hear since he was so focused on finishing off his opponent. "You've beaten wave one. On to the next wave!"

Kid looked back towards the jungle exasperatedly, "The… next wave? How many waves are there exactly?"

"Ten."

Back in the real world, the Echocardiogram stopped for a quick moment as Kid's heart skipped a beat. Death chewed his fingernails nervously, something was wrong.

In the crowd of the arena, under the moonlight, a familiar face with a weird haircut walked through the spectators. Behind him was another guy with blue hair. They both smiled grimly, it was going to be a long night.


	33. A final escape

Kid's desperation showed in how he fought. With the next two monsters, he was forced to use nearly half of his healing items, and the third monster almost killed him twice before he could finally strike it down. The monster's levels were getting extremely high, to the point where they'd be higher than the floor that the front lines were currently working to get through. With the third monster defeated, the announcer declared that there would be a quick intermission before the next fight.

Kid collapsed on the ground, not even caring anymore that the crowd would be judging him for his lapse into weakness.

"This…" he spat out like the words tasted bitter, "was stupid. I'm gonna get myself killed."

He rolled onto his back and looked at the night sky. He remembered fighting alongside the rest of the DWMA on nights like this, fighting Arachne and her cronies. That seemed like eons ago, a whole different lifetime. There was Death The Kid, the Meister with a powerful lineage… and then there was Kid the duelist, the teen caught inside of a deadly game. Since Liz and Patty died, it felt like those two were separated, when in fact they had been one and the same when this game started.

 _Liz… Patty… I miss you. I really do miss you._

 _But I don't want to see you again this soon._

The stars seemed to float around the flying castle in a way that was impossible. They moved too fast to be far away, either that or they were supposed to be blasting around the world at a speed far greater than they did in the real life.

Kid knew it didn't matter, they were just ones and zeros, programmed in to give some nice visuals for gamers to look at before they died. He sighed.

"I don't want to die tonight."

From the forested area there was some rustling.

Kid had stayed away from fighting too heavily in the forest; there were too many traps and pitfalls to be safe. So when he heard rustling, his mind instantly went to another monster. He grabbed his sword and stood up, heart racing faster as his body went into fight or flight mode.

"You won't die tonight."

The voice came out of the forest. It sounded familiar to Kid, almost like.

"BLACKSTAR IS HERE TO HELP YOU!"

The blue haired, self-proclaimed, "ninja" rushed out of the forest and tackled Kid to the ground. Kid had to be careful not to stab the excited teen.

"What the hell were you thinking, Kid?" Another voice said, this one belonging to Soul, who walked forwards like a normal human… unlike BlackStar. "We told you this was dumb. We told you that you were most likely going to die. We told you that you were acting foolishly." He put a thumb on his brow like it hurt, "You're giving me a headache, man, not cool."

"Soul, BlackStar, what are you two doing here?" Kid asked from beneath BlackStar.

BlackStar made a face, "What does it look like, you dolt? We're here to proclaim my great glory by busting you out of this arena. We even have a plan. Step 1: Infiltrate using my dazzling good looks to distract the guards. Step 2: find you and kill whatever monster you were fighting with my dazzling strength. Step 3: Run away as fast as we can using my dazzling speed."

"That's…. that's actually pretty close to the truth," Soul smirked, "Save for the whole 'dazzling' part. Get in, kill your monster, get out."

The plan sounded simple, as most plans that work usually are. In Kid's line of work, the simpler the plan, the more likely it was to work. The complicated plans usually fell through once one element went missing.

"The viewers won't like this," Kid told them, "They want to see me dead. Odds are that if we try to escape, we're going to be slashed so many times we look like something from a horror movie. We can't fight our way out."

Soul set something down and activated it. The crystal now on the ground began shining a bright blue light.

"We won't have to, we've got something else planned for an escape." He shut off the crystal as a flash of red was seen on top of the audience stands. "We've got one minute. Make sure you're ready." He took out another crystal, " _Restore"._

Kid's HP went to its max.

The sixty seconds passed in silence, even BlackStar began focusing. And the second that Kid counted to sixty… a very worthy distraction happened.

An explosion rang out from the West end of the arena, covering the audience over there in smoke and scattering players. Kid saw a small group of players run in from the hole and held their ground. Even from a distance he could recognize Crona, Maka, and Lisbeth.

BlackStar and Soul began running as hard as they could, leaving Kid behind, this must've been their escape. Kid started running after them, lungs hurting as he tried to catch up.

"The player is escaping!" The announcer said over the crystal amplifier, "Stop him!"

Some of the audience jumped the wall, spawning in their weapons as they readied for a bloodbath. They got in between Kid, Soul, and BlackStar, and their escape hole. There were three of them immediately in front of Kid, two had swords, one an axe. He ducked and slid under the first two sword strikes, and as the axe was swung horizontally at him he jumped it like a hurdle.

"GET THEM!" The announcer yelled again. "HE DESERVES TO DIE!"

"Maybe you're right, but I'm not done yet." Kid mumbled to himself as he got back to running. Another group of audience members assaulted him, and he had to kill two before continuing to run. He felt his player crystal above his head turn red as it marked him as a Player Killer, a murderer.

"Keep running Kid!" Soul yelled from ahead as he ran past a man he just slashed through the gut. The man had coded intestines spilling out from his gut before dissolving with a scream that could pierce Kevlar.

Kid kept running, but he was falling behind after being tested for his life the whole night. He found himself in the midst of 10 angry audience members who were keen to see his blood stain the ground. He dodged the first two strikes, parried, took a stab to the arm, but kept going. He struck out at the men in front of him, trying to create a hole to escape through, but they dodged backwards and kept surrounding him.

There was no escape for him. Kid couldn't dodge forever.

He took a single stab to the leg, and the man who stabbed him lunged farther to pin Kid to the ground through his leg. Kid killed him, but couldn't move his leg from where it was down. Another blade slashed off his hand when he raised it to defend himself. A third stabbed his neck lopsided to where he could feel the sinews unable to hold his head straight up. And then his HP hit 0.

Death saw the heart rate go upwards again… then stop completely. Flatline.

"KID!" Soul yelled as he saw his friend die. He was only 20 feet from Maka.

"Maka, use me!" He yelled at his Meister. Maka nodded and held her hand out as Soul formed into a scythe and flew at her. She grabbed his handle, stinging her palm with his cool steel. She could feel his hatred flowing through his soul, overwhelming everything in her.

Death could feel his anger towards everything this game represented overflow. He chopped the Echocardiogram in two. Spirit watched from behind a doorway, seeing shadowy trails of pain and loss flow from his Meister.

Make sliced through the front lines of them, killing around 20 of the audience before 10 others charged her down and ripped Soul from her hands.

Soul couldn't cry in scythe form, but as he saw Maka vanish into numbers in front of his eyes, he felt his soul explode in pain.

Spirit saw his daughter's Echocardiogram go flatline. He walked into the room, no longer afraid of Death's aura, took Maka's body in his arms, and cried over her dead body.

BlackStar and Tsubaki saw their friends fall and felt their hearts fall with them. It was all over. Tsubaki transformed into her sword form, and they charged in together, ready to die with sadness in their hearts.

Lisbeth could only run in shock… following the fallback plan in case everything went south. She remembered what Soul said before they struck out. "If everything should go to hell, Lis, run. We can die for our friends, we can't let you die with us. Run and live on."

The sound of flatlining machines filled the air in the hospital, and nurses and doctors rushed into the room. They could do nothing but declare their deaths.

Crona saw his only friends he'd ever had die in front of his eyes. Pain and loss filled him like they'd filled his companions. Ragnarok grew heavy in his hands, growing back to his old form before Crona had joined up with the group. "I have… black… blood. Do you want to see it?"

And he plunged Ragnarok into his stomach, letting his blood flow all over the floor. And with his last breath he told the blood to be no more. The black, inky, liquid exploded into shards, scattering bodies and stands everywhere.

The final flatline.

Kirito heard of the news one week later from a heartbroken Lisbeth… to him, this was it. The final straw. Nobody else he knew was going to die. He was going to talk with Asuna tomorrow to discuss how they were going to turn the tables on her guild leader.

The end.


	34. Author's note

That was it, the final chapter to The Deadly Game. I first off want to apologize for making you wait so long for this, life got in the way too often. I'm a hockey coach, a hockey player, a tournament player in Smash Brothers Melee, a host at a restaurant, and an intern at a hospital... life got tough.

I wanted to thank everybody who followed this story, you told me that people wanted to hear what I had to write.

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I am indebted to you.

My thanks to everybody who favorited, you told me that my writing wasn't total crap.

And my thanks to everybody who commented, you've made me a much better author in the process of doing so, and it's because of all of you that I wrote this out and actually finished it.

This isn't my only story, I write for other fandoms as well, so if you're interested in Harry Potter, Splatoon, or other anime, check out what I've got. I'd appreciate it. I'm also writing a legitimate book as well and looking to get it published before next summer, so if you see a book by a guy called "Davis Lahm" you know who wrote it. If you like my writing style, I'd hope you check it out. Now, as this is my last Author's Note, I just want to say that I love all of you who took the time out of your day to read this, it's been quite a ride. I'm not going to take any commissions or requests for stories, unless they're one shots, but I'm open to doing oneshots for all of you. Thank you all so much for reading, and as always, Have Yourselves a Damn Good Day... Dlahm17 out.


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